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C. H. SPURGEON 




JOHN «* •* •* •* •* •* 
LOUGHMAN'So. * 

JL fj I >* l\^ «£* e£* vF vP «£* 

OR, PLAIN ADVICE FOR PLAIN PEOPLE 

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by C. H. SPURGEON 

ILLUSTRATED 



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Philadelphia & £ & *# & 

HENRY ALTEMUS 



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Copyrighted, 1896, by Henry Altemus. 



HENRY ALTEMUS, MANUFACTURER, 
PHILADELPHIA. 



PREFACE. 

IN "John Ploughman's Talk" I have 
written for ploughmen and common 
people. Hence refined taste and dainty 
words have been discarded for strong pro- 
verbial expressions and homely phrases. I 
have aimed my blows at the vices of the 
many, and tried to inculcate those moral 
virtues without which men are degraded. 
Much that needs to be said to the toiling 
masses would not well suit the pulpit and 
the Sabbath ; these lowly pages may teach 
thrift and industry all the days of the week, 
in the cottage and the workshop ; and if 
some learn these lessons I shall not repent 
the adoption of a rustic style. 

Ploughman is a name I may justly claim. 
Every minister has put his hand to the 
plough : and it is his business to break up 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

the fallow ground. That I have written in 
a semi-humorous vein needs no apology, 
since thereby sound moral teaching has 
gained a hearing from at least 300,000 per- 
sons. There is no particular virtue in be- 
ing seriously unreadable. 

A pickle jar has these words upon it : " If 
you like our pickles, try our sauce," and 
so I would add, if you like " John Plough- 
man's Talk," try his " Pictures; " which is a 
second volume of the same character as the 
present. 

C. H. SPURGEON. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

To the Idle 7 

On Religious Grumblers 22 

On the Preacher's Appearance 33 

On Good Nature and Firmness 39 

On Patience 50 

On Gossips 57 

On Seizing Opportunities 62 

On Keeping One's Eyes Open 69 

Thoughts about Thought 76 

Faults S3 

Things not worth Trying 89 

Debt 96 

Home Ill 

Men who are Down 123 

Hope 131 

Spending 140 

A Good Word for Wives 148 

Men with Two Faces 163 

Hints as to Thriving 1 73 

Tall Talk 185 

Things I would not Choose ........ 197 

Try 204 

Monuments 213 

Very Ignorant People 221 

(5) 



JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALL 




IT is of no more use to give advice to the 
idle than to pour water into a sieve ; 
and as to improving them, one might as 

(7) 



8 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

well try to fatten a greyhound. Yet, as 
The Old Book tells us to " cast our bread 
upon the waters," we will cast a hard crust 
or two upon these stagnant ponds ; for there 
will be this comfort about it, if lazy fellows 
grow no better, we shall be none the worse 
for having warned them ; for when we sow 
good sense, the basket gets none the 
emptier. We have a stiff bit of soil to 
plough when we chide with sluggards, and 
the crop will be of the smallest ; but if none 
but good land were farmed, ploughmen 
would be out of work ; so we'll put the 
plough into the furrow. Idle men are com- 
mon enough, and grow without planting, 
but the quantity of wit among seven acres 
of them would never pay for raking: noth- 
ing is needed to prove this but their name 
and their character ; if they were not fools 
they would not be idlers ; and though Solo- 
mon says, " The sluggard is wiser in his 
own conceit than seven men that can ren- 
der a reason," yet in the eyes of every one 
else his folly is as plain as the sun in the 
sky. If I hit hard while speaking to them, 
it is because I know they can bear it ; for 
if I had them down on the floor of the old 



TO THE IDLE. 9 

barn, I might thresh many a day before I 
could get them out of the straw, and even 
the steam thresher could not do it, it would 
kill them first; for laziness is in some 
people's bones, and will show itself in their 
idle flesh, do what you will with them. 

Well, then, first and foremost, it strikes 
me that lazy people ought to have a large 
looking glass hung up, where they are 
bound to see themselves in it ; for sure, 
if their eyes are at all like mine, they would 
never bear to look at themselves long or 
often. The ugliest sight in the world is 
one of those thorough-bred loafers, who 
would hardly hold up his basin if it were 
to rain porridge ; and for certain would 
never hold up a bigger pot than he wanted 
filled for himself. Perhaps, if the shower 
should turn to beer, he might wake him- 
self up a bit ; but he would make up for it 
afterwards. This is the slothful man in the 
Proverbs, who u hideth his hand in his 
bosom ; it grieveth him to bring it again to 
his mouth." I say that men the like of this 
ought to be served like the drones which 
the bees drive out of the hives. Every 
man ought to have patience and pity for 



io JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

poverty; but for laziness, a long whip; or 
a turn at the treadmill might be better. 
This would be healthy physic for all slug- 
gards ; but there is no chance of some of 
them getting their full doze of this medi- 
cine, for they were born with silver spoons 
in their mouths, and like spoons, they will 
scarce stir their own tea unless somebody 
lends them a hand. They are, as the old 
proverb says/* as lazy as Ludham's dog, that 
leaned his head against the wall to bark ;" 
and, like lazy sheep, it is too much trouble 
for them to carry their own wool. If they 
could see themselves, it might by chance do 
them a world of good; but perhaps it 
would be too much trouble for them to 
open their eyes even if the glass were hung 
for them. 

Everything in the world is of some use ; 
but it would puzzle a doctor of divinity, or 
a philosopher, or the wisest owl in our 
steeple, to tell the good of idleness : that 
seems to me to be an ill wind which blows 
nobody any good — a sort of mud which 
breeds no eels, a dirty ditch which would 
not feed a frog. Sift a sluggard grain by 
grain, and you'll find him all chaff. I have 



TO THE IDLE. II 

heard men say, " Better do nothing than do 
mischief," but I am not even sure of that: 
that saying glitters well, but I don't believe 
it's gold. I grudge laziness even that pinch 
of praise, I say it is bad and bad altogether ; 
for look ye, a man doing mischief is a spar- 
row picking the corn — but a lazy man is a 
sparrow sitting on a nest full of eggs, which 
will all turn to sparrows before long, and do 
a world of hurt. Don't tell me, I'm sure 
of it, that the rankest weeds on earth don't 
grow in the minds of those who are busy at 
wickedness, but in foul corners of idle men's 
imaginations, where the devil can hide away 
unseen like an old serpent as he is. I don't 
like our boys to be in mischief, but I would 
sooner see them up to their necks in the 
mud in their larks, than sauntering about 
with nothing to do. If the evil of doing 
nothing seems to be less to-day, you will 
find it out to be greater to-morrow ; the 
devil is putting coals on the fire, and so the 
fire does not blaze, but, depend upon it, it 
will be a bigger fire in the end. Idle peo- 
ple, you had need be your own trumpeters, 
for no one else can find any good in you to 
praise. I'd sooner see you through a tele- 



12 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

scope than anything else, for I suppose you 
would then be a long way off; but the big- 
gest pair of spectacles in the parish could 
not see anything in you worth talking 
about. Moles, and rats, and weasels, there 
is something to be said for, though there's 
a pretty sight of them nailed up on our old 
barn, but as for you — well, you'll be of use 
in the grave, and help to make a fat church- 
yard, but no better song can I sing in your 
favor than this verse, as the parish clerk 
said, " all of my own composing : " 

A good-for-nothing lazy lout, 
Wicked within and ragged without, 
Who can bear to have him about ? 
Turn him out ! Turn him out ! 

"As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to 
the eyes," so is the sluggard to every man 
who is spending his sweat to earn an hon- 
est living, while these fellows let the grass 
grow up to their ankles, and stand cumber- 
ing the ground, as the Bible says. 

A man who wastes his time and his 
strength in sloth offers himself to be a tar- 
get for the devil, who is a wonderfully good 
rifleman, and will riddle the idler with his 



TO THE IDLE. 13 

shots : in other words, idle men tempt the 
devil to tempt them. He who plays when 
he should work, has an evil spirit to be 
his playmate; and he who neither works 
nor plays is a workshop for Satan. If the 
devil catch a man idle, he will set him to 
work, find him tools, and before long pay 
him wages. Is not this where the drunken- 
ness comes from which fills our towns and 
villages with misery ? Idleness is the key 
of beggary, and the root of all evil. Fellows 
have two stomachs for eating and drinking 
when they have no stomach for work. That 
little hole just under the nose swallows up 
in idle hours that money which should put 
clothes on the children's backs, and bread 
on the cottage table. We have God's word 
for it, that " the drunkard and the glutton 
shall come to poverty ; " and to show the 
connection between them, it is said in the 
same verse, " and drowsiness shall clothe a 
man with rags." I know it as well as I 
know that moss grows on old thatch, that 
drunken, loose habits grow out of lazy 
hours. I like leisure when I can get it, but 
that's quite another thing ; that's cheese 
and the other is chalk ; idle folks never know 



14 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

what leisure means ; they are always in a 
hurry and a mess, and by neglecting to 
work in the proper time, they always have 
a lot to do. Lolling about hour after hour, 
with nothing to do, is just making holes in 
the hedge to let the pigs through, and they 
will come through, and no mistake, and the 
rooting they will do nobody knows but 
those who have to look after the garden. 
The Lord Jesus tells us himself that when 
men slept the enemy sowed the tares ; and 
that hits the nail on the head, for it is by 
the door of sluggishness that evil enters 
the heart more often, it seems to me, than 
by any other. Our old minister used to 
say, "A sluggard is fine raw material for' 
the devil ; he can make anything he likes 
out of him, from a thief right up to a mur- 
derer." I'm not the only one that con- 
demns the idle, for once when I was going 
to give our minister a pretty long list of the 
sins of one of our people that he was asking 
after, I began with " he's dreadfully lazy." 
" That's enough," said the old gentleman; 
"all sorts of sins are in that one, that's 
the sign by which to know a full-fledged 
sinner." 



TO THE IDLE, 15 

My advice to my boys has been, get out 
of the sluggard's way, or you may catch his 
disease, and never get rid of it. I am al- 
ways afraid of their learning the ways of the 
idle, and am very watchful to nip anything 
of the sort in the bud ; for you know it is 
best to kill a lion while it is a cub. Sure 
enough our children have all our evil nature 
about them, for you can see it growing of 
itself like weeds in a garden. Who can 
bring a clean thing out of the unclean ? A 
wild goose never lays a tame egg. Our 
boys will be off to the green with the ne'er- 
do-wells unless we make it greener still at 
home for them, and train them up to hate 
the company of the slothful. Never let 
tjiem go to the " Rose and Crown;" let 
them learn to earn a crown while they are 
young, and grow the roses in their father's 
garden at home. Bring them up bees and 
they will not be drones. 

There is much talk about bad masters 
and mistresses nowadays, and I dare say 
that there is a good deal in it, for there's bad 
of all sorts now as there always was ; another 
time, if I am allowed, I will have a say 
about that matter ; but I am sure there is 



16 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

plenty of room for complaint against some 
among the working people too, especially 
upon this matter of slothfulness. You know 
we are obliged to plough with such cattle 
as we have found for us ; but when I am 
set to work with some men, I'd as soon 
drive a team of snails, or go out rabbit hunt- 
ing with a dead ferret. Why, you might 
sooner get blood out of a gatepost, or 
juice out of a cork, than work out of some 
of them ; and yet they are always talking 
about their rights ; I wish they would give 
an eye to their own wrongs, and not lean 
on the plough-handles. Lazy lie-a-beds 
are not working men at all, any more than 
pigs are bullocks, or thistles apple trees. 
All are not hunters that wear red coats, 
and all are not working men who call 
themselves so. I wonder sometimes that 
some of our employers keep so many cats 
who catch no mice. I would as soon drop 
my halfpence down a well as pay some 
people for pretending to work, who only 
fidget you and make your flesh crawl to 
see them all day creeping over a cabbage 
leaf. Live and let live, say I, but I don't 



TO THE IDLE. 1 7 

include sluggards in that license ; for they 
who will not work, neither let them eat. 

Here, perhaps, is the proper place to say 
that some of the higher classes, as they 
are called, set a shamefully bad example in 
this respect : our great folks are some of 
them quite as lazy as they are rich, and 
often more so ; the big dormice sleep as 
long and as sound as the little ones. Many 
a parson buys or hires a sermon, so that he 
may save himself the trouble of thinking. 
Is not this abominable laziness ? They 
sneer at the Ranters ; but there is not a 
Ranter in the kingdom but what would be 
ashamed to stand up and read somebody 
else's sermon as if it were his own. Many 
of our squires have nothing to do but to 
part their hair in the middle ; and many 
of the London grandees, ladies and gentle- 
men both alike, as I am told, have no bet- 
ter work than killing time. Now, they say 
the higher a* monkey climbs, the more his 
tail is seen ; and so, the greater these 
people are, the more their idleness is 
noticed, and the more they ought to be 
ashamed of it. I don't say they ought to 
plough, but I do say that they ought to do 



18 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

something for the state, besides being like 
the caterpillars on the cabbage, eating up 
the good things ; or like the butterflies, 
showing themselves off, but making no 
honey. I cannot be angry with these peo- 
ple somehow, for I pity them when I think 
of the stupid rules of fashion which they 
are forced to mind, and the vanity in which 
they weary out their days. I'd sooner by 
half bend my back double with hard work 
than be a jack-a-dandy, with nothing to 
do but to look in the glass and see in it 
a fellow who never put a single potato into 
the nation's pot, but took a good many 
out. Let me drop on these Surrey hills, 
worn out like my master's old brown 
mare, sooner than eat bread and cheese 
and never earn it ; better die an honorable 
death than live a good-for-nothing life. 
Better get into my coffin, than be dead and 
alive, a man whose life is a blank. 

However, it is not much e^se that lazy 
people get by all their scheming, for they 
always take the most pains in the end; 
they will not mend the thatch, and so 
they have to build a new cottage ; they will 
not put the horse in the cart, and so have 



TO THE IDLE. 19 

to drag it themselves. If they were wise, 
they would do their work well, so as to save 
doing it twice ; and tug hard while they are 
in harness, so as to get the work out of the 
way. My advice is, if you don't like hard 
work, just pitch into it, settle it off, and have 
your turn at rest. 

I wish all religious people would take this 
matter under their consideration ; for some 
professors are amazingly lazy, and make sad 
work for the tongues of the wicked. I think 
a godly ploughman ought to be the best 
man in the field, and let no team beat him. 
When we are at work, we ought to be at it, 
and not stop the plough to talk, even though 
the talk may be about religion; for then we 
not only rob our employers of our own time, 
but of the time of the horses too. I used to 
hear people say, " Never stop the plough to 
catch a mouse," and it's quite as silly to stop 
for idle chat ; besides, the man who loiters 
when the master is away is an eye-server, 
which, I take it, is the very opposite of 
a Christian. If some of the members of our 
meeting were a little more spry with their 
arms and legs when they are at labor, and a 
little quieter with their tongues, they would 



20 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

say more for our religion that they now 
do. The world says the greatest rogue is 
the pious rogue ; and I'm sorry to say one 
of the greatest sluggards I know of is a pro- 
fessing man of the " Mr. Talkative " kind. 
His garden is so overgrown with weeds 
that I feel often half a mind to weed it for 
him, to save our meeting the shame which 
he brings upon it : if he were a young lad, 
I'd talk to him about it and try to teach 
him better, but who can be schoolmaster to 
a child sixty years old ? He is a regular 
thorn to our good minister, who is quite 
grieved about it, and sometimes says he 
will go somewhere else because he cannot 
bear such conduct ; but I tell him that 
wherever a man lives he is sure to have one 
thornbush near his door, and it is a mercy 
if there are not two. However, I do wish 
that all Christians would be industrious, for 
religion never was designed to make us 
idle. Jesus was a great worker, and his 
disciples must not be afraid of hard work. 

As to serving the Lord with cold hearts 
and drowsy souls, there has been too much 
of it, and it causes religion to wither. Men 
ride stags when they hunt for gain, and 



TO THE IDLE. 21 

snails when they are on the road to heaven. 
Preachers go on see-sawing, droning, and 
prosing, and the people fall to yawning and 
folding their arms, and then say that God is 
withholding the blessing. Every sluggard, 
when he finds himself enlisted in the ragged 
regiment, blames his luck; and some 
churches have learned the same wicked 
trick. I believe that when Paul plants and 
Apollos waters, God gives the increase, and 
I have no patience with those who throw 
the blame on God when it belongs to them- 
selves. 

Now I have come to the end of my 
tether. I am afraid I have been watering 
a dead stake, but I have done my best, and 
a king can do no more. An ant can never 
make honey if it work its heart out, and I 
shall never put my thoughts so prettily to- 
gether as some do, book-fashion ; but truth 
is truth, even when dressed in homespun, 
and so there is an end of my rigmarole. 



ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 




No piper ever suited all ears." — Page 28 



WHEN a man has a particularly empty 
head he generally sets up for a great 
judge, especially in religion. None so wise 
as the man who knows nothing. His igno- 
rance is the mother of his impudence, and 
(22) 



ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 23 

the nurse of his obstinacy ; and though he 
does not know B from a bull's foot, he set- 
tles matters as if all wisdom were at his fin- 
gers' ends — the Pope himself is not more 
infallible. Hear him talk after he has been 
at meeting and heard a sermon, and you 
will know how to pull a good man to pieces 
if you never knew it before. He sees faults 
where there are none, and if there be a few 
things amiss, he makes every mouse into 
an elephant. Although you might put all 
his wit into an egg-shell, he weighs the 
sermon in the balances of his conceit with 
all the airs of a bred-and-born Solomon, 
and if it be up to his standard, he lays on 
his praise with a trowel ; but if it be not to 
his taste, he growls and barks and snaps at 
it like a dog at a hedgehog. Wise men in 
this world are like trees in a hedge, there is 
only here and there one ; and when these 
rare men talk together upon a discourse, it 
is good for the ears to hear them ; but the 
bragging wiseacres I am speaking of are 
vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds, and 
their quibbling is as senseless as the cackle 
of geese on a common. Nothing comes 
out of a sack but what was in it, and as their 



24 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

bag is empty they shake nothing but wind 
out of it. It is very likely that neither 
ministers nor their sermons are perfect — 
the best garden may have a few weeds in it, 
the cleanest corn may have some chaff — 
but cavillers cavil at anything or nothing, 
and find fault for the sake of showing off 
their deep knowledge : sooner than let their 
tongues have a holiday, they would com- 
plain that the grass is not a nice shade of 
blue, and say that the sky would have 
looked neater if it had been whitewashed. 

One tribe of these Ishmaelites is made 
up of highflying ignoramuses who are very 
mighty about the doctrine of a sermon — 
here they are as decisive as sledge-hammers 
and as certain as death. He who knows 
nothing is confident in everything ; hence 
they are bullheaded beyond measure. Every 
clock, and even the sundial, must be set ac- 
cording to their watches ; and the slightest 
difference from their opinion proves a man 
to be rotten at heart. Venture to argue 
with them, and their little pot boils over in 
quick style; ask them for reason, and you 
might as well go to a sand-pit for sugar. 
They have bottled up the sea of truth, and 



ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS, 25 

carry it in their waistcoat pockets; they 
have measured heaven's line of grace, and 
have tied a knot in a string at the exact 
length of electing love ; and as for the 
things which angels long to know, they have 
seen them all as boys see sights in a peep- 
show at our fair. Having sold their mod- 
esty and become wiser than their teachers, 
they ride a very high horse, and jump over 
all five-barred gates of Bible-texts which 
teach doctrines contrary to their notions. 
When this mischief happens to good men, 
it is a great pity for such sweet pots of 
ointment to be spoiled by flies, yet one 
learns to bear with them just as I do with 
old Violet, for he is a rare horse, though he 
does set his ears back and throw out his 
legs at times. But there is a black brag- 
ging lot about, who are all sting and no 
honey ; all whip and no hay ; all grunt 
and no bacon. These do nothing but rail 
from morning to night at all who cannot 
see through their spectacles. If they would 
but mix up a handful of good living with 
all their bushels of bounce, it would be 
more bearable ; but no, they don't care for 
such legality; men so sound as they are 



26 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

can't be expected to be good at anything 
else ; they^ are the heavenly watch-dogs to 
guard the house of the Lord from those 
thieves and robbers who don't preach 
sound doctrine, and if they do worry the 
sheep, or steal a rabbit or two by the sly, 
who would have the heart to blame them ? 
The Lord's dear people, as they call them- 
selves, have enough to do to keep their 
doctrine sound ; and if their manners are 
cracked, who can wonder! no -man can see 
to everything at once. These are the 
moles that want catching in many of our 
pastures, not for their own sakes, for there 
is not a sweet mouthful in them, but for 
the sake of the meadows which they spoil. 
I would not find half a fault with their doc- 
trine, if it were not for their spirit ; but 
vinegar is sweet to it, and crabs are figs in 
comparison. It must be very high doc- 
trine that is too high for me, but I must 
have high experience and high practice with 
it, or it turns my stomach. However, I 
have said my say, and must leave the sub- 
ject, or somebody will ask me, " What have 
you to do with Bradshaw's windmill ? " 
Sometimes it is the way the preacher 



ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 27 

speaks which is hauled over the coals, and 
here again is a fine field for fault hunting, 
for every bean has its black, and every man 
has his failing. I never knew a good horse 
which had not some odd habit or other, and 
I never yet saw a minister worth his salt 
who had not some crotchet or oddity : now, 
these are the bits of cheese which cavillers 
smell out and nibble at : this man is too slow, 
and another too fast ; the first is too flow- 
ery, and the second is too dull. Dear me, 
if all God's creatures were judged in this 
way, we should wring the dove's neck for 
being too tame, shoot the robins for eating 
spiders, kill the cows for swinging their 
tails, and the hens for not giving us milk. 
When a man wants to beat a dog, he can 
soon find a stick ; and at this rate any 
fool may have something to say against the 
best minister in England. As to a preach- 
er's manner, if there be but plain speaking, 
none shall cavil at it because it wants pol- 
ish, for if a thing is good and earnestly 
spoken, it cannot sound much amiss. No 
man should use bad language in the pul- 
pit — and all language is bad which com- 
mon people cannot make head or tail of — 



28 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

but godly, sober, decent, plain words none 
should carp at. A countryman is as warm 
in fustian as a king in velvet, and a truth 
is as comfortable in homely words as in 
fine speech. As to the way of dishing up 
the meat, hungry men leave that to the 
cook, only let the meat be sweet and sub- 
stantial. If hearers were better, sermons 
would be better. When men say they can't 
hear, I recommend them to buy a horn, 
and remember the old saying, u There's none 
so deaf as those who will not hear." When 
young speakers get down-hearted because 
of hard, unkind remarks, I generally tell 
them of the old man and his boy and his 
ass, and what came of trying to please every- 
body. No piper ever suited all ears. Where 
whims and fancies sit in the seat of judg- 
ment, a man's opinion is only so much wind, 
therefore take no more notice of it than of 
the wind whistling through a keyhole. 

I have heard men find fault with a dis- 
course for what was not in it; no matter 
how well the subject in hand was brought 
out, there was another subject about which 
nothing was said, and so all was wrong; 
which is as reasonable as finding fault with 



ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 29 

my ploughing because it does not dibble 
the holes for the beans, or abusing a good 
corn-field because there are no turnips in it. 
Does any man look for every truth in one 
sermon ? As well look for every dish at 
one meal, and rail at a joint of beef because 
there are neither bacon, nor veal, nor green 
peas, nor parsnips on the table. Suppose a 
sermon is not full of comfort to the saint, 
yet if it warn the sinner, shall we despise it ? 
A handsaw would be a poor tool to shave 
with, shall we therefore throw it away ? 
Where is the use of always trying to hunt 
out faults ? I hate to see a man with a fine 
nose smelling about for things to rail at like 
a rat-catcher's dog sniffing at rat holes. By 
all means let us down with error, root and 
branch, but do let us save our billhooks 
till there are brambles to chop, and not fall 
foul of our own mercies. 

Judging preachers is a poor trade, for it 
pays neither party concerned in it. At a 
ploughing match they do give a prize to 
the best of us; but these judges of preach- 
ing are precious slow to give anything even 
to those whom they profess to think so 
much of. They pay in praise, but give no 



30 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

pudding. They get the gospel for nothing, 
and if they do not grumble, think that they 
have made an abundant return. 

Everybody thinks himself a judge of a 
sermon, but nine out of ten might as well 
pretend to weigh the moon. I believe that, 
at bottom, most people think it an uncom- 
monly easy thing to preach, and that they 
could do it amazingly well themselves. 
Every donkey thinks itself worthy to stand 
with the king's horses ; every girl thinks 
she could keep house better than her mother; 
but thoughts are not facts ; for the sprat 
thought itself a herring, but the fisherman 
knew better. I dare say those who can 
whistle fancy that they can plough ; but 
there's more than whistling in a good 
ploughman, and so let me tell you there's 
more in good preaching than taking a text, 
and saying, firstly, secondly, and thirdly. 
I try my hand at preaching myself, and in 
my poor way I find it no very easy thing to 
give the folks something worth hearing ; and 
if the fine critics, who reckon us up on their 
thumbs, would but try their own hands at 
it, they might be a little more quiet. Dogs, 
however, always will bark, and what is 



ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 31 

worse, some of them will bite too ; but let 
decent people do all they can, if not to 
muzzle them, yet to prevent them doing 
any great mischief. It is a dreadful thing 
to see a happy family of Christians broken 
up by talkative fault-finders, and all about 
nothing, or less than nothing. Small is the 
edge of the wedge, but when the devil han- 
dles the beetle, churches are soon split to 
pieces, and men wonder why. The fact is, 
the worst wheel of the cart creaks most, and 
one fool makes many, and thus many a 
congregation is set at ears with a good and 
faithful minister, who would have been a 
lasting blessing to them if they had not 
chased away their best friend. Those who 
are at the bottom of the mischief have gen- 
erally no part or lot in the matter of true 
godliness, but, like sparrows, fight over corn 
which is not their own, and, like jackdaws, 
pull to pieces what they never helped to 
build. From mad dogs, and grumbling 
professors, may we all be delivered, and may 
we never take the complaint from either of 
them. Fault-finding is dreadfully catching : 
one dog will set a whole kennel howling, 
and the wisest course is to keep out of the 



32 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

way of a man who has the complaint 
called the grumbles. The worst of it is, 
that the foot and mouth disease go to- 
gether, and he who bespatters others gen- 
erally rolls in the mud himself before long. 
" The fruit of the Spirit is love/' and this 
is a very different apple from the sour Si- 
berian crab which some people bring forth. 
Good bye, all ye sons of Grizzle, John Plough- 
man would sooner pick a bone in peace 
than fight over an ox roasted whole. 



ON THE PREACHER'S APPEAR- 
ANCE. 




" You cannot judge a horse by his harness." — Page 37. 

A GOOD horse cannot be a bad color, 
and a really good preacher can wear 
what he likes, and none will care much 
3 (33) 



34 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

about it ; but though you cannot know wine 
by the barrel, a good appearance is a letter 
of recommendation even to a ploughman. 
Wise men neither fall into love nor take a 
dislike at first sight, but still the first im- 
pression is always a great thing even with 
them ; and as to those weaker brethren who 
are not wise, a good appearance is half the 
battle. What is a good appearance ? Well, 
it's not being pompous and starchy, and 
making one's self high and mighty among 
the people, for proud looks lose hearts, and 
gentle words win them. It's not wearing 
fine clothes either, for foppish dress usually 
means a foul house within, and the door- 
step without fresh whitened ; such dressing 
tells the world that the outside is the best 
part of the puppet. When a man is proud 
as a peacock, all strut and show, he needs 
converting himself before he sets up to 
preach to others. The preacher who 
measures himself by his looking glass 
may please a few silly girls, but neither 
God nor man will long put up with him. 
The man who owes his greatness to his 
tailor will find that needle and thread cannot 
long hold a fool in a pulpit. A gentleman 



ON THE PREACHER'S APPEARANCE. 35 

should have more in his pocket than on his 
back, and a minister should have more in 
his inner man than on his outer man. I 
would say, if I might, to young ministers, 
do not preach in gloves, for cats in mit- 
tens catch no mice ; don't curl and oil 
your hair like dandies, for nobody cares 
to hear a peacock's voice ; don't have your 
own pretty self in your mind at all, or 
nobody else will mind you. Away with 
gold rings, and chains, and jewelry ; why 
should the pulpit become a goldsmith's 
shop ? For ever away with surplices and 
gowns, and all those nursery doll dresses — 
men should put away childish things. A 
cross on the back is the sign of a devil in 
the heart ; those who do as Rome does 
should go to Rome and show their colors. 
If priests suppose that they get the respect 
of honest men by their fine ornamental 
dresses, they are much mistaken, for it is 
commonly said, " Fine feathers make fine 
birds," and 

"An ape is ne'er so like an ape 
As when he wears a popish cape." 

Among us Dissenters the preacher claims 



36 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

no priestly power, and therefore should 
never wear a peculiar dress ; let fools wear 
fools' caps and fools' dresses, but men who 
make no claim to be fools should not put 
on fools' clothes. None but a very silly 
sheep would wear wolf's clothing. It is a 
singular taste which makes honest men 
covet the rags of thieves. Besides, where's 
the good of such finery ? Except a duck in 
pattens, no creature looks more stupid than 
a dissenting preacher in a gown which is 
of no manner of use to him. I could laugh 
till I held my sides when I see our doctors 
in gowns and bands, puffed out with their 
silks, and touched up with their little bibs, 
for they put me so much in mind of our old 
turkey-cock when his temper is up, and he 
swells to his biggest. They must be weak 
folks indeed who want a man to dress like 
a woman before they can enjoy his sermon ; 
and he who cannot preach without such 
milliner's trumpery may be a man among 
geese, but he is a goose among men. At 
the same time, the preacher should en- 
deavor, according to his means, to dress 
himself respectably ; and, as to neatness, he 
should be without spot, for kings should 



ON THE PREACHER'S APPEARANCE. 37 

not have dirty footmen to wait at their 
table, and they who teach godliness should 
practise cleanliness. I should like white 
neckties better if they were always white, 
but dirty brown is neither here nor there. 
From a slovenly, smoking, snuff-taking, 
beer-drinking parson may the church be de- 
livered. Some that I meet with may, per- 
haps, have very good manners, but they 
did not happen to have them about them 
at the time : like the Dutch captain with 
his anchors, they had left them at home ; 
this should never be the case, for, if there 
be a well-behaved man in the parish, it 
should be the minister. A worn coat is no 
discredit, but the poorest may be neat, and 
men should be scholars, rather than teach- 
ers, till they are so. You cannot judge a 
horse by his harness ; but a modest, gentle- 
manly appearance, in which the dress is 
just such as nobody could make a remark 
upon, seems to me to be the right sort of 
thing. This little bit of my mind is meant 
to warn you young striplings who have just 
started in the ministry ; and if any of you 
get cross over it, I shall tell you that sore 
horses cannot bear to be combed, and 



38 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

again, " those whom the cap fits must wear 
it." John Ploughman, you will say, had 
better mend his own smock, and let the 
parsons alone ; but I take leave to look 
about me and speak my mind, for a cat may 
look at a king, and a fool may give. wise 
men good advice. If I speak too plainly, 
please remember that an old dog cannot al- 
ter his way of barking, and he who has long 
been used to plough a straight furrow is 
very apt to speak in the same straightfor- 
ward manner. 



ON GOOD NATURE AND FIRMNESS. 




"Long before they know whether it is a thief in the farmyard, or 
the old mare got loose, they up with the window, and fire off the 
old blunderbuss." — Page 45. 

O not be all sugar, or the world will 



D 



suck you down ; but do not be all 
vinegar, or the world will spit you out. 

(39) 



40 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

There is a medium in all things, only block- 
heads go to extremes. We need not be 
all rock or all sand, all iron or all wax. 
We should neither fawn upon everybody 
like silly lapdogs, nor fly at all persons like 
surly mastiffs. Blacks and whites go to- 
gether to make up a world, and hence on 
the point of temper we have all sorts of 
people to deal with. Some are as easy as 
an old shoe, but they are hardly ever worth 
more than the other one of the pair ; and 
others take fire as fast as tinder at the 
smallest offence, and are as dangerous as 
gunpowder. To have a fellow going about 
the farm as cross with everybody as a bear 
with a sore head, with a temper as sour as 
verjuice and as sharp as a razor, looking as 
surly as a butcher's dog, is a great nuisance, 
and yet there may be some good points 
about the man, so that he may be a man for 
all that ; but poor soft Tommy, as green as 
grass, and as ready to bend as a willow, is 
nobody's money and everybody's scorn. A 
man must have a backbone, or how is he to 
hold his head up ? but that backbone must 
bend, or he will knock his brow against the 
beam. 



ON GOOD NATURE AND FIRMNESS. 41 

There is a time to do as others wish, and 
a time to refuse. We may make ourselves 
asses, and then everybody will ride us ; but 
if we would be respected, we must be our 
own masters, and not let others saddle us 
as they think fit. If we try to please every- 
body, we shall be like a toad under a harrow, 
and never have peace ; and if we play lac- 
quey to all our neighbors, whether good or 
bad, we shall be thanked by no one, for we 
shall soon do as much harm as good. He 
that makes himself a sheep, will find that 
the wolves are not all dead. He who lies 
on the ground must expect to be trodden 
on. He who makes himself a mouse, the 
cats will eat him. If you let your neigh- 
bors put the calf on your shoulder, they 
will soon clap on the cow. We are to 
please our neighbor for his good to edifi- 
cation, but this is quite another matter. 

There are old foxes about whose mouths 
are always watering for young geese, and if 
they can cozen them to do just what they 
wish, they soon make their market out of 
them. What a jolly good fellow you will 
be called if you will make yourself a hack 
for your friends, and what a Benjamin's 



42 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

mess will they soon bring you into ? Out 
of that mess you will have to get all alone, 
for your old friends will be sure to say to 
you, " Good-bye, basket, I've carried all my 
apples," or they will give you their good 
wishes and nothing more, and you will find 
out that fair words won't feed a cat, nor but- 
ter your bread, nor fill your pocket. Those 
who make so very much of you either mean 
to cheat you, or else are in need of you : 
when they have sucked the orange they 
will throw the peel away. Be wise, then, 
and look before you leap, lest a friend's ad- 
vice should do you more mischief than an 
enemy's slander. " The simple believeth 
every word ; but the prudent man looketh 
well to his going." Go with your neighbor 
as far as good conscience will go with you, 
but part company where the shoe of con- 
science begins to pinch your foot. Begin 
with your friend as you mean to go on, and 
let him know very early that you are not a 
man made of putty, but one who has a judg- 
ment of his own, and means to use it. Pull 
up the moment you find you are out of the 
road, and take the nearest way back at once. 
The way to avoid great faults is to beware 



ON GOOD NATURE AND FIRMNESS. 43 

of small ones, therefore pull up in time if 
you would not be dragged into the ditch by 
your friend. Better offend your acquaint- 
ance than lose your character and hazard 
your soul. Don't be ashamed to walk 
down Turnagain Lane. Never mind being 
called a turncoat when you turn from bad 
courses : better to turn in time than to burn 
in eternity. Do not be persuaded to ruin 
yourself — it is buying gold too dear to 
throw oneself away to please our company. 
Put your foot down where you mean to 
stand, and let no man move you from the 
right. Learn to say, " No," and it will be 
of more use to you than to be able to read 
Latin. 

A friend to everybody is often a friend to 
nobody, or else in his simplicity he robs his 
family to help strangers, and becomes 
brother to a beggar. There is wisdom in 
generosity, as in everything else, and some 
had need go to school to learn it. A kind- 
hearted soul may be very cruel to his own 
children, while he takes the bread out of 
their mouths to give to those who call him 
a generous fellow, but laugh at his folly. 
Very often he that his money lends loses 



44 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

both his gold and his friends, and he who is 
surety is never sure. Take John Plough- 
man's advice, and never be security for more 
than you are quite willing to lose. Remem- 
ber the word of God says, " He that is 
surety for a stranger shall smart for it : and 
he that hateth suretiship is sure." 

When we are injured, we are bound as 
Christians to bear it without malice ; but we 
are not to pretend that we do not feel it, for 
this will but encourage our enemies to kick 
us again. He who is cheated twice by the 
same man is half as bad as the rogue ; and 
it is very much so in other injuries — unless 
we claim our rights, we are ourselves to 
blame if we do not get them. Paul was 
willing to bear stripes for his Master's sake, 
but he did not forget to tell the magistrates 
that he was a Roman ; and when those 
gentlemen wished to put him out of prison 
privately, he said, " Nay, verily, let them 
come themselves and fetch us out." -A 
Christian is the gentlest of men, but then 
he is a man. A good many people don't 
need to be told this, for they are up in a 
moment if they think anybody is likely to 
illtreat them ; long before they know 



ON GOOD NATURE AND FIRMNESS. 45 

whether it is a thief in the farmyard, or 
the old mare got loose, they up with the 
window, and fire off the old blunderbuss. 
Dangerous neighbors these; a man might 
as well make a seat out of a bull's fore- 
head, as expect to find comfort in their 
neighborhood. Make no friendship with 
an angry man ; and with a furious man 
thou shalt not go. " He that is slow to 
wrath is of great understanding ; but he that 
is hasty of spirit exalteth folly." " Seest 
thou a man that is hasty in his words ? 
there is more hope of a fool than of him." 
In my day I have seen a few downright 
obstinate men, whom neither sense nor rea- 
son could alter. There's a queer chap in 
our village who keeps a bulldog, and he 
tells me that when the creature once gives 
a bite at anything, he never lets go again, 
and if you want to get it out of his mouth, 
you must cut his head off; that's the sort 
of man that has fretted me many a time 
and almost made me mad. You might 
sooner argue a pitchfork into a threshing 
machine, or persuade a brickbat to turn 
into marble, than get the fellow to hear com- 
mon sense. Scrubbing blackamoors white, 



46 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

and getting spots out of leopards, is nothing 
at all compared with trying to lead a down- 
right obstinate man. Right or wrong, you 
might as easily make a hill walk to Lon- 
don, as turn him when his mind is made up. 
When a man is right, this sticking to his 
text is a grand thing; our minister says, 
" it is the stuff that martyrs are made of; " 
but when an ignorant, wrongheaded fellow 
gets this hard grit into him, he makes mar- 
tyrs of those who have to put up with him. 
Old Master Pighead swore he would drive 
a nail into an oak board with his fist, and 
so lamed his hand for life; he could not 
sell his corn at his own price, and so he let 
the rats eat up the ricks. You cannot ride 
by his fields without noticing his obstinacy, 
for he vows, " He won't have none of these 
'ere new-fangled notions," and so he grows 
the worst crops in the parish ; and worst of 
all, his daughter went among the Metho- 
dists, and, in a towering rage, he turned 
her out of doors ; and though I believe he 
is very sorry for it, he will not yield an 
inch, but stands to it he will never speak to 
her so long as he lives, and meanwhile the 
dear girl is dying through his unkindness. 



ON GOOD NATURE AND FIRMNESS. 47 

Rash vows are much better broken than 
kept. He who never changes never mends; 
he who never yields, never conquers. 

With children you must mix gentleness 
with firmness ; they must not always have 
their own way, but they must not always 
be thwarted. Give to a pig when it grunts, 
and to a child when it cries, and you will 
have a fine pig and a spoiled child. A 
man who is learning to play on a trumpet, 
and a petted child, are two very disagreeable 
companions even as next-door neighbors; 
but unless we look well to it, our children 
will be a nuisance to others and a torment 
to ourselves. " The rod and reproof give 
wisdom : but a child left to himself bring- 
eth his mother to shame." If" we never 
have headaches through rebuking our little 
children, we shall have plenty of heartaches 
when they grow up. Strict truthfulness 
must rule all our dealings with the young ; 
our yea must be yea, and our nay nay, and 
that to the letter and the moment. Never 
promise a child and then fail to perform, 
whether you promise him a bun or a beat- 
ing. Be obeyed at all costs — disobedient 
children are unhappy children; for their 



48 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

own sakes make them mind you. If you 
yield up your authority once, you will 
hardly ever get it again, for he who says 
A must say B, and so on. We must not 
provoke our children to anger, lest they be 
discouraged, but we must rule our house- 
hold in the fear of the Lord, and in so do- 
ing may expect a blessing. 

Since John Ploughman has taken to 
writing, he has had a fine chance of showing 
his firmness, and his gentleness too, for he 
has received bushels of advice, for which 
he begs to present his compliments, as the 
squire's lady says, and he does not mind 
either returning the advice or some of his 
own instead, by way of showing his grati- 
tude ; for he is sure it is very kind of so 
many people to tell him so many different 
ways in which he might make a stupid of 
himself. He means to glean as many good 
hints as he can from the acres of his friends' 
stubble ; and while sticking to his own style, 
because it suits his hand, he will touch him- 
self up a bit if he can. Perhaps if the 
minister will lend him Cowper or Milton, he 
may even stick a sprig of poetry into his 
nosegay, and come out as fine as the flowers 



ON GOOD NATURE AND FIRMNESS. 49 

in May ; but he cannot promise, for the 
harvest is just on, and reaping leaves no 
time for rhyming. The worst of it is, 
the kind friends who are setting John to 
rights, contradict one another ; one says it's 
very poor stuff, and all in an assumed 
name, for the style is not rough enough 
for a ploughman; and another says the 
matter is very well, but really, the expres- 
sions are so coarse, he wonders the editor 
puts it in the magazine. John means to 
pay his advisers all the attention which they 
deserve, and as some of the mice have been 
bold enough to make a nest in the cat's ear, 
he means to be after them and write a pa- 
per upon giving advice gratis, in which 
they will be likely to get a flea in their ear 
in return for their instructions. 
4 



ON PATIENCE. 




" Blow the wind never so fast, it will lower at last." — Page 54. 

PATIENCE is better than wisdom : an 
ounce of patience is worth a pound 
of brains. All men praise patience, but few 
(50) 



ON PATIENCE. 51 

enough can practise it; it is a medicine 
which is good for all diseases, and therefore 
every old woman recommends it : but it is 
not every garden that grows the herbs to 
make it with. When one's flesh and bones 
are full of aches and pains, it is as natural 
for us to murmur as for a horse to shake 
his head when the flies tease him, or a wheel 
to rattle when a spoke is loose; but nature 
should not be the rule with Christians, or 
what is their religion worth ? If a soldier 
fights no better than a ploughboy, off with 
his red coat. We expect more fruit from 
an apple-tree than from a thorn, and we 
have a right to do so. The disciples of a 
patient Saviour should be patient them- 
selves. Grin and bear it is the old-fashioned 
advice, but sing and bear it is a great deal 
better. After all, we get very few cuts of 
the whip, considering what bad cattle we 
are ; and when we do smart a little, it is 
soon over. Pain past is pleasure, and ex- 
perience comes by it. We ought not to be 
afraid of going down into Egypt when we 
know we shall come out of it with jewels 
of silver and gold. 

Impatient people water their miseries 



52 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

and hoe up their comforts ; sorrows are 
visitors that come without invitation, but 
complaining minds send a waggon to bring 
their troubles home in. Many people are 
born crying, live complaining, and die dis- 
appointed ; they chew the bitter pill which 
they would not even know to be bitter if 
they had the sense to swallow it whole in a 
cup of patience and water. They think 
every other man's burden to be light, and 
their own feathers to be heavy as lead ; they 
are hardly done by in their own opinion ; 
no one's toes are so often trodden on by 
the black ox as theirs ; the snow falls thick- 
est round their door, and the hail rattles 
hardest on their windows ; and yet, if the 
truth were known, it is their fancy rather 
than their fate which makes things go so 
hard with them. Many would be well 
off if they could but think so. A little 
sprig of the herb called content put into 
the poorest soup will make it taste as rich 
as the Lord Mayor's turtle. John Plough- 
man grows the plant in his garden, but the 
late hard winter nipped it terribly, so that 
he cannot afford to give his neighbors a 
slip of it ; they had better follow Matthew 



ON PA TIENCE. 53 

xxv. 9, and go to those who sell, and buy 
for themselves. Grace is a good soil to 
grow it in, but it wants watering from the 
fountain of mercy. 

To be poor is not always pleasant, but 
worse things than that happen at sea. 
Small shoes are apt to pinch, but not if you 
have a small foot ; if we have little means 
it will be well to have little desires. Pov- 
erty is no shame, but being discontented 
with it is. In some things the poor are 
better off than the rich; for if a poor man 
has to seek meat for his stomach, he is 
more likely to get what he is after than 
the rich man who seeks a stomach for his 
meat. A poor man's table is soon spread, 
and his labor spares his buying sauce. 
The best doctors are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, 
and Dr. Merry man, and many a godly 
ploughman has all these gentlemen to wait 
upon him. Plenty makes dainty, but hun- 
ger finds no fault with the cook. Hard 
work brings health, and an ounce of health 
is worth a sack of diamonds. It is not how 
much we have, but how much we enjoy, 
that makes happiness. There is more 
sweet in a spoonful of sugar than in a 



54 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

cask of vinegar. It is not the quantity of 
our goods, but the blessing of God on what 
we have that makes us truly rich. The par- 
ings of a pippin are better than a whole 
crab ; a dinner of herbs, with peace, is bet- 
ter than a stalled ox and contention there- 
with. " Better is little with the fear of the 
Lord than great treasure and trouble there- 
with." A little wood will heat my little 
oven ; why, then, should I murmur because 
all the woods are not mine ? 

When troubles come, it is of no use to 
fly in the face of God by hard thoughts of 
providence; that is kicking against the 
pricks and hurting your feet. The trees 
bow in the wind, and so must we. Every 
time the sheep bleats it loses a mouthful, 
and every time we complain we miss a 
blessing. Grumbling is a bad trade, and 
yields no profit, but patience has a golden 
hand. Our evils will soon be over. After 
rain comes clear shining ; black crows have 
wings ; every winter turns to spring ; every 
night breaks into morning. 



Blow the wind never so fast, 
It will lower at last. 



ON PATIENCE. 55 

If one door should be shut, God will open 
another ; if the peas do not yield well, the 
beans may : if one hen leaves her eggs, 
another will bring out all her brood : there's 
a bright side to all things, and a good God 
everywhere. Somewhere or other in the 
worst flood of trouble there always is a dry 
spot for contentment to get its foot on, and 
if there were not it would learn to swim. 

Friends, let us take to patience and water 
gruel, as the old folks used to tell us, rather 
than catch the miserables, and give others 
the disease^ by wickedly finding fault with 
God. The best remedy for affliction is sub- 
mitting to providence. What can't be 
cured must be endured. If we cannot get 
bacon, let us bless God that there are still 
some cabbages in the garden. Must is a 
hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel. 
" All things work together for good to them 
that love God." Whatever falls from the 
skies is, sooner or later, good for the land : 
whatever comes to us from God is worth 
having, even though it be a rod. We can- 
not by nature like trouble any more than a 
mouse can fall in love with a cat, and yet 
Paul by grace came to glory in tribulations 



56 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

also. Losses and crosses are heavy to bear, 
but when our hearts are right with God it 
is wonderful how easy the yoke becomes. 
We must needs go to glory by the way of 
Weeping Cross ; and as we were never 
promised that we should ride to heaven in 
a feather bed, we must not be disappointed 
when we see the road to be rough, as our 
fathers found it before us. All's well that 
ends well ; and, therefore, let us plough the 
heaviest soil with our eye on the sheaves 
of harvest, and learn to sing at our labor 
while others murmur. 



ON GOSSIPS. 




" Don't be the devil's bellows, to blow up the fire of strife." — Page 61. 

IN Walton church, in our county, there 
is a brank, or scold's bridle, which was 
used in years gone by to keep women's 
tongues from troubling their husbands and 

(57) 



58 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

their neighbors. They did queer things 
in those good old times. Was this bridle 
a proof of what our parson calls the wis- 
dom of our ancestors, or was it a bit of 
needless cruelty ? 

" It is nothing — only a woman drowning," 
is a wicked and spiteful old saying, which, 
like the bridle, came out of the common 
notion that women do a world of mischief 
with their tongues. Is it so or not? John 
Ploughman will leave somebody else to 
answer, for he owns that he cannot keep a 
secret himself, and likes a dish of chat as 
well as anybody ; only John does not care 
for cracking people's characters, and hates 
the slander which is so sweet to some peo- 
ple's teeth. John puts the question to 
wiser men than himself: Are women much 
worse than men in this business? They 
say that silence is a fine jewel for a woman, 
but it is very little worn. Is it so ? Is it 
true that a woman only conceals what she 
does not know ? Are women's tongues 
like lambs' tails, always wagging ? They 
say foxes are all tail, and women all tongue. 
Is this false or not ? Was that old prayer 
a needful one — " From big guns and 



ON GOSSIPS. 59 

women's tongues deliver us ? " John has 
a right good and quiet wife of his own, 
whose voice is so sweet that he cannot 
hear it too often, and therefore he is not a 
fair judge; but he is half afraid that some 
other women would sooner preach than pray, 
and would not require strong tea to set 
their clappers going; but still what is sauce 
for the goose is sauce for the gander, and 
some men are quite as bad blabs as the 
women. 

What a pity that there is not a tax 
upon words: what an income the Queen 
would get from it ; but, alas ! talking pays 
no toll. And if lies paid double, the gov- 
ernment might pay off the National Debt ; 
but who could collect the money ? Common 
fame is a common liar. Hearsay is half 
lies. A tale never loses in the telling. As 
a snowball grows by rolling, so does a story. 
They who talk much lie much. If men 
only said what was true, what a peaceable 
world we should see ! Silence seldom makes 
mischief; but talking is a plague to the 
parish. Silence is wisdom ; and, by this 
rule, wise men and wise women are scarce. 
Still waters are the deepest ; but the shal- 



60 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

lowest brooks brawl the most ; this shows 
how plentiful fools must be. An open 
mouth shows an empty head. If the chest 
had gold or silver in it, it would not al- 
ways stand wide open. Talking comes by 
nature, but it needs a good deal of train- 
ing to learn to be quiet ; yet regard for 
truth should put a bit into every honest 
man's mouth, and a bridle upon every 
good woman's tongue. 

If we must talk, at least let us be free 
from slander, but let us not blister our 
tongues with backbiting. Slander may be 
sport to talebearers, but it is death to those 
whom they abuse. We can commit mur- 
der with the tongue as well as with the hand. 
The worst evil you can do a man is to in- 
jure his character; as the Quaker said to 
his dog, " I'll not beat thee, nor abuse thee, 
but I'll give thee an ill name." All are 
not thieves that dogs bark at, but they are 
generally treated as if they were ; for the 
world for the most part believes that where 
there is smoke there is fire, and what every- 
body says must be true. Let us then be 
careful that we do not hurt our neighbor 
in so tender a point as his character, for 



ON GOSSIPS. 61 

it is hard to get dirt off if it is once thrown 
on ; and when a man is once in people's 
bad books, he is hardly ever quite out of 
them. If we would be sure not to speak 
amiss, it might be as well to speak as lit- 
tle as possible ; for if all men's sins were 
divided into two bundles, half of them 
would be sins of the tongue. " If any man 
offend not in word, the same is a perfect 
man, and able also to bridle the whole 
body." 

Gossips of both genders, give up the 
shameful trade of talebearing; don't be the 
devil's bellows any longer to blow up the 
fire of strife. Leave off setting people by 
the ears. If you do not cut a bit off your 
tongues, at least season them with the salt 
of grace. Praise God more and blame 
neighbors less. Any goose can cackle, any 
fly can find out a sore place, any empty bar- 
rel can give forth sound, any brier can tear 
a man's flesh. No flies will go down your 
throat if you keep your mouth shut, and 
no evil speaking will come up. Think 
much, but say little : be quick at work and 
slow at talk ; and above all, ask the great 
Lord to set a watch over your lips. 



ON SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES. 




" Dear me, is the train gone ? My watch must have stopped in 
the night." 

SOME men are never awake when the 
train starts, but crawl into the station 
just in time to see that everybody is off, 
and then sleepily say, " Dear me, is the 
(62) 



ON SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES. 63 

train gone? My watch must have stopped 
in the night." They always come into 
town a day after the fair, and open their 
wares an hour after the market is over. 
They make their hay when the sun has left 
off shining, and cut their corn as soon as 
the fine weather is ended ; they cry, " Hold 
hard ! " after the shot has left the gun, and 
lock the stable door when the steed is 
stolen. They are like a cow's tail, always 
behind ; they take time by the heels, and not 
by the forelock, if indeed they ever take 
him at all. They are no more worth than 
an old almanack; their time has gone for 
being of use; but, unfortunately, you can- 
not throw them away as you would the al- 
manack, for they are like the cross old lady 
who had an annuity left her, and meant to 
take out the full value of it; they won't die, 
though they are of no use alive. Take-it 
easy and Live-long are first cousins, they 
say, and the more's the pity. "If they are 
immortal till their work is done, they will 
not die in a hurry, for they have not even 
begun to work yet. Shiftless people gener- 
ally excuse their laziness by saying " they 
are only a little behind ; " but a little too late 



64 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

is much too late, and a miss is as good as a 
mile. My neighbor Sykes covered up his 
well after his child was drowned in it; and 
was very busy down at the Old Farm bring- 
ing up buckets of water after every stick of 
the house had been burnt ; one of these days 
he'll be for making his will when he can't 
hold a pen, and he'll be trying to repent of 
his sins when his senses are going. 

These slow coaches think that to-morrow 
is better than to-day, and take for their rule 
an old proverb turned topsy-turvy — " Never 
do to-day what you can put off till to-mor- 
row." They are forever waiting until their 
ship comes home, and always dreaming 
about things looking up by-and-by ; while 
grass grows in their furrows, and the cows 
get through the gaps in their hedges. If 
the birds would but wait to have salt put on 
their tails, what a breakfast they would take 
home to their families ! but while things 
move as fast as they do, the youngsters at 
home will have to fill their mouths with 
empty spoons. " Never mind," say they, 
" there are better times coming ; wait a lit- 
tle longer." Their birds are all in the bush, 
and rare fat ones they are, according to their 



ON SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES, 65 

account ; and so they had need to be, for 
they have had none in the hand yet, and 
wife and children are half starved. Some- 
thing will turn up, they say ; why don't the 
stupids go and turn it up themselves ? Time 
and tide wait for no man, and yet these fel- 
lows loiter about as if they had a freehold 
of time, a lease of their lives, and a rabbit 
warren of opportunities. They will find 
out their mistake when want finds them out, 
and that will not be long with some in our 
village, for they are already a long way on 
the road to Needham. They who would 
not plough must not expect to eat ; they 
who waste the spring will have a lean au- 
tumn. They would not strike when the iron 
was hot, and they will soon find the cold 
iron very hard. 

" He that will not when he may, 
When he will he shall have nay." 

Time is not tied to a post, like a horse to a 
manger ; it passes like the wind, and he who 
would grind his corn by it must set the mill- 
sails. He that gapes till he be fed, will gape 
till he be dead. Nothing is to be got with- 
out pains except poverty and dirt. In the 
5 



66 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

old days they said, " Jack gets on by his stu- 
pidity : " Jack would find it very different 
nowadays, I think ; but never in old times, 
or any other times, would Jack get on by 
foolishly letting present chances slip by him ; 
for hares never run into the mouths of sleep- 
ing dogs. He that hath time, and looks 
for better time, time comes that he repents 
himself of time. There's no good in lying 
down and crying, " God help us ! " God 
helps those who help hemselves. When I 
see a man who declares that the times are 
bad, and that he is always unlucky, I gen- 
erally say to myself, that old goose did not 
sit on the eggs till they were all addled, and 
now providence is to be blamed because 
they won't hatch. I never had any faith in 
luck at all, except that I believe good luck 
will carry a man over a ditch if he jumps 
well, and will put a bit of bacon into his 
pot if he looks after his garden and keeps 
a pig. Luck generally comes to those who 
look after it, and my notion is that it taps at 
least once in a lifetime at everybody's door, 
but if industry does not open it, away it 
goes. Those who have lost the last coach, 
and let every opportunity slip by them, turn 



ON SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES. 67 

to abusing providence for setting everything 
against them: "If I were a hatter," says 
one, " men would be born without heads." 
" If I went to the sea for water, " quoth an- 
other, " I should find it dried up." Every 
wind is foul for a crazy ship. Neither the 
wise nor the wealthy can help him who has 
long refused to help himself. 

John Ploughman in the most genteel man- 
ner sends his compliments to his friends, and 
now that harvest is over, and the hops all 
picked, according to promise, he intends 
giving them a bit of poetry, just to show that 
he is trying the polishing brushes. John 
asked the minister to lend him one of the 
poets, and he gave him the works of George 
Herbert, — very good, no doubt, but rather 
tangled, like Harkaway Wood ; still, there's 
a good deal in the queer old verses, and 
every now and then one comes upon clus- 
ters of the sweetest nuts, but some of them 
are rather hard to crack. The following 
verse is somewhat near the subject now in 
hand, and is plain enough in reason, though, 
begging the poet's pardon, John can't see a 
rhyme in it; however, as it is by the great 
Herbert r it must be good, and will do well 



68 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

enough to ornament John's talk, like a 
flower stuck in a button-hole of his Sun- 
day coat. 

" Let thy mind still be bent, still plotting where, 
And when, and how thy business may be done. 
Slackness breeds worms ; but the sure traveller, 
Though he alight sometimes, still goeth on. 
Acting and stirring spirits live alone : 
Write on the others, Here lies such a one" 



ON KEEPING ONE'S EYES OPEN. 




" There are many baits for fishes." 

TO get through this world a man must 
look about him, and even sleep with 
one eye open ; for there are many baits for 

(69) 



70 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

fishes, many nets for birds, and many traps 
for men. While foxes are so common we 
must not be geese. There is a very great 
difference in this matter among people of 
my acquaintance: many see more with one 
eye than others with two, and many have 
fine eyes and cannot see a jot. All heads 
are not sense-boxes. Some are so cunning 
that they suspect everybody, and so live 
all their lives in miserable fear of their 
neighbors ; others are so simple that every 
knave takes them in, and makes his penny 
of them. One man tries to see through a 
brick wall, and hurts his eyes ; while 
another finds out a hole in it, and sees as 
far as he pleases. Some work at the mouth 
of a furnace, and are never scorched ; and 
others burn their hands at the fire when 
they only mean to warm them. Now, it is 
true that no one can give another experi- 
ence, and we must all pick up wit for our- 
selves ; yet I shall venture to give some 
of the homely cautions which have served 
my turn, and perhaps they may be of use to 
others as they have been to me. 

Nobody is more like an honest man than 
a thorough rogue. When you see a man 



ON KEEPING ONE'S EYES OPEN. 71 

with a great deal .of religion displayed in 
his shop window, you may depend upon it 
he keeps a very small stock of it within. 
Do not choose your friend by his looks : 
handsome shoes often pinch the feet. Don't 
be fond of compliments : remember, " Thank 
you, pussy, and thank you, pussy," killed 
the cat. Don't believe in the man who talks 
most; for mewing cats are very seldom 
good mousers. By no means put yourself 
in another person's power: if you put pour 
thumb between two grinders, they are very 
apt to bite. Drink nothing without seeing 
it; sign nothing without reading it, and 
make sure that it means no more than it 
says. Don't go to law unless you have 
nothing to lose : lawyer's houses are built 
on fools' heads. In any business, never 
wade into water where you cannot see the 
bottom. Put no dependence upon the 
label of a bag ; and count money after your 
own kin. See the sack opened before you 
buy what is in it ; for he who trades in the 
dark asks to be cheated. Keep clear of the 
man who does not value his own character. 
Beware of everyone who swears : he who 
would blaspheme his Maker would make 



72 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

no bones of lying or stealing. Beware of 
no man more than of yourself: we carry 
our worst enemies within us. When a new 
opinion or doctrine comes before you, do 
not bite till you know whether it is bread 
or a stone ; and do not be sure that the 
gingerbread is good because of the gilt 
on it. Never shout holloa ! till you are 
quite out of the wood; and don't cry fried 
fish till they are caught in the net. There's 
always time enough to boast — wait a little 
longer. Don't throw away dirty water till 
you have got clean ; keep on at scraping the 
roads till you can get better work; for the 
poorest pay is better than none, and the 
humblest office is better than being out of 
employment. Always give up the road to 
bulls and madmen ; and never fight with 
a coalheaver or contend with a base char- 
acter; for they will be sure to blacken 
you. 

" Neither trust nor contend, 
Nor lay wagers, nor lend, 
And you may depend 
You'll have peace to your end." 

I cannot say quite so much as that old 
rhyme does, for there's more than that 



ON KEEPING ONE 'S E YES OPEN. 73 

wanted to give peace, but certainly it will 
help to it. Never ride a broken-kneed 
horse : the trader who has once been a 
fraudulent bankrupt is not the man for you 
to deal with. A rickety chair is a danger- 
ous seat. Be shy of people who are over 
polite, and don't be too fast with those who 
are forward and rough. When you sus- 
pect a design in anything, be on your guard ; 
set the trap as soon as you smell a rat, but 
mind you don't catch your own fingers in 
it. Have very little to do with a boaster, 
for his beer is all froth, and though he 
brags that all his goods, and even his cop- 
per kettles, are gold and silver, you will soon 
find out that a boaster and a liar are first 
cousins. Commit all your secrets to no 
man ; trust in God with all your heart, but 
let your confidence in friends be weighed in 
the balances of prudence, seeing that men 
are but men, and all men are frail. Trust 
not great weights to slender threads. Yet 
be not evermore suspicious, for suspicion 
is a cowardly virtue at best. Men are not 
angels, remember that ; but they are not 
devils, and it is too bad to think them so. 
One thing be sure of, never believe in any 



74 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

priest of any religion, for before a man 
could be bad enough to pretend to be a 
priest, he must have hardened his heart and 
blinded his conscience to the most horrible 
degree. Our governors imprison gipsies for 
telling fortunes, and yet they give fat liv- 
ings to those vagabonds who deceive the 
people in much weightier things. " Bad 
company," said the thief, as he went to the 
gallows between the hangman and a priest ; 
a very honest speech, and a very true word, 
though spoken in jest. It is the ignorance 
of fools which keeps the pot boiling for 
priests. May God clean this land from the 
plague of their presence, and make men wise 
enough to see through their crafty devices. 
Lastly, my advice to all is — remember that 
good wisdom is that which will turn out to 
be wise in the end ; seek it, friends, and seek 
it at the hands of the wisest of all teachers, 
the Lord Jesus. Trust him, and he will 
never fail you ; be guided by his word, and 
it will never mislead you ; pray in his name, 
and your requests shall be granted. Re- 
member, he that leans on man will find him 
a broken reed, but he who builds on Christ 
has a firm foundation. You may follow 



ON KEEPING ONE'S EYES OPEN 75 

Jesus with your eyes shut if you please, 
but when others would guide you keep all 
your eyes open even if you have a dozen, 
and all of them as powerful as telescopes. 



THOUGHTS ABOUT THOUGHT. 




" Two heads are better than one." — Page 77. 

THIS paper is very little of it to be set 
down to the account of John Plough- 
man, for our minister, as I may say, found 
the horses and held the plough handles, and 
(76) 



THOUGHTS ABOUT THOUGHT 77 

the ploughman only put in a smack of the 
whip every now and then, just to keep folks 
awake. " Two heads are better than one," 
said the woman when she took her dog 
with her to market : begging his pardon, 
our minister is the woman, and the only 
sensible head in the whole affair. He is a 
man who is used to giving his people many 
things of a very different sort from any- 
thing which a ploughman is likely to turn 
out of his wallet ; but I have, at his request, 
dropped in a few homely proverbs into his 
thoughts, as he says, " by way of salt ; " 
which is his very kind way of putting it. 
I only hope I have not spoiled his writing 
with my rough expressions. If he thinks 
well of it, I should like a few more of his 
pieces to tack my sayings to ; and the pub- 
lic shall always be honestly told whether 
the remarks are to be considered as alto- 
gether " John Ploughman's Talk," or as the 
writings of two characters rolled into one. 
There are not so many hours in a year 
as there may be thoughts in an hour. 
Thoughts fly in flocks, like starlings, and 
swarm like bees. Like the sere leaves in 
autumn, there is no counting them ; and 



78 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

like links in a chain, one draws on another. 
What a restless being man is ! His thoughts 
dance up and down like midges in a sum- 
mer's evening. Like a clock full of wheels, 
with the pendulum in full swing, his mind 
moves as fast as time flies. This makes 
thinking such an important business. Many 
littles make a mickle ; and so many light 
thoughts make a great weight of sin. A 
grain of sand is light enough, but Solomon 
tells us that a heap of sand is heavy. 
Where there are so many children the mother 
had need look well after them. We ought 
to mind our thoughts, for if they turn to be 
our enemies, they will be too many for us, 
and will drag us down to ruin. Thoughts 
from heaven, like birds in spring, will fill 
our souls with music ; but thoughts of evil 
will sting us like vipers. 

There is a notion abroad that thought 
is free; but I remember reading, that al- 
though thoughts are toll-free, they are not 
hell-free ; and that saying quite agrees with 
the good old Book. We cannot be sum- 
moned before an earthly court for thinking ; 
but depend upon it we shall have to be 
tried for it at the Last Assizes. Evil thoughts 



THOUGHTS ABOUT THOUGHT. 79 

are the marrow of sin ; the malt that sin is 
brewed from ; the tinder which catches the 
sparks of the devil's temptations ! the churn 
in which the milk of imagination is churned 
into purpose and plan ; the nest in which 
all evil birds lay their eggs. Be certain, 
then, that, as sure as fire burns brushwood 
as well as logs, God will punish thoughts 
of sin as well as deeds of sin. 

Let no one suppose that thoughts are 
not known to the Lord ; for he has a win- 
dow into the closest closet of the soul ; a 
window to which there are no shutters. As 
we watch bees in a glass hive, so does the 
eye of the Lord see us. The Bible says, 
" Hell and destruction are before the Lord : 
how much more then the hearts of the chil- 
dren of men?" Man is all outside to God. 
With heaven there are no secrets. That 
which is done in the private chamber of 
the heart is as public as the streets before 
the all-seeing eye. 

But some will say that they cannot help 
having bad thoughts; that may be, but 
the question is, do they hate them or not ? 
We cannot keep thieves from looking in 
at our windows, but if we open our doors to 



80 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

them, and receive them joyfully, we are as 
bad as they. We cannot help the birds fly- 
ing over our heads ; but we may keep them 
from building their nests in our hair. Vain 
thoughts will knock at the door, but we 
must not open to them. Though sinful 
thoughts rise, they must not reign. He who 
turns a morsel over and over in his mouth, 
does so because he likes the flavor ; and he 
who meditates upon evil, loves it, and is 
ripe to commit it. Think of the devil, and 
he will appear ; turn your thoughts towards 
sin, and your hands will soon follow. Snails 
leave their slime behind them, and so do 
vain thoughts. An arrow may fly through 
the air, and leave no trace ; but an ill thought 
always leaves a trail like a serpent. Where 
there is much traffic of bad thinking, there 
will be much mire and dirt ; every wave of 
wicked thought adds something to the cor- 
ruption which rots upon the shore of life. 
It is dreadful to think, that a vile imagina- 
tion, once indulged, gets the key of our 
minds, and can get in again very easily, 
whether we will or no, and can so return as 
to bring seven other spirits with it more 
wicked than itself; and what may follow, no 



THOUGHTS ABOUT THOUGHT. Si 

one knows. Nurse sin on the knees of 
thought, and it will grow into a giant. Dip 
tow in naphtha, and how it will blaze when 
fire gets to it ! lay a man asoak in depraved 
thought, and he is ready to flame up into 
open sin as soon as ever opportunity occurs. 
This shows us the wisdom of watching, 
every day, the thoughts and imaginations of 
our hearts. Good thoughts are blessed 
guests, and should be heartily welcomed, 
well fed, and much sought after. Like rose 
leaves, they give out a sweet smell if laid 
up in the jar of memory. They cannot be 
too much cultivated ; they are a crop which 
enriches the soil. As the hen broods her 
chickens under her wings, so should we 
cherish all holy thoughts. As the poor 
man's ewe lamb ate of his own bread and 
lay in his bosom, even so should godly med- 
itation be very dear to us. Holy thoughts 
breed holy words and holy actions, and are 
hopeful evidences of a renewed heart. Who 
would not have them ? To keep chaff out 
of a bushel, one sure plan is to fill it full 
of wheat ; and to keep out vain thoughts, 
it is wise and prudent to have the mind 
stored with choice subjects for meditation : 
6 



82 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

these are easy to find, and we should never 
be without them. May we all be able to 
say with David, " In the multitude of my 
thoughts within me, thy comforts delight 
my soul." 



FAULTS. 



" What's rotten will rend." — Page 85. 

HE who boasts of being perfect is per- 
fect in folly. I have been a good 
deal up and down in the world, and I never 
did see either a perfect horse or a perfect 
man, and I never shall till two Sundays 

(83) 



84 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

come together. You cannot get white flour 
out of a coal sack, nor perfection out of 
human nature ; he who looks for it had bet- 
ter look for sugar in the sea. The old say- 
ing is, " Lifeless, faultless : " of dead men 
we should say nothing but good, but as for 
the living, they are all tarred more or less 
with the black brush, and half an eye can 
see it. Every head has a soft place in it, and 
every heart has its black drop. Every rose 
has its prickles, and every day its night. 
Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are 
darkened with clouds. Nobody is so wise 
but he has folly enough to stock a stall at 
Vanity Fair. Where I could not see the 
fool's-cap, I have nevertheless heard the 
bells jingle. As there is no sunshine with- 
out some shadows, so is all human good 
mixed up with more or less of evil ; even 
poor law guardians have their little failings, 
and parish beadles are not wholly of 
heavenly nature. The best wine has its 
lees. All men's faults are not written on 
their foreheads, and it's quite as well they 
are not, or hats would need very wide brims, 
yet, as sure as eggs are eggs, faults of some 
sort nestle in every bosom. There's no 



FAULTS. 85 

telling when a man's sins may show them- 
selves, for hares pop out of the ditch just 
when you are not looking for them. A 
horse that is weak in the legs may not 
stumble for a mile or two, but it is in him, 
and the rider had better hold him up well. 
The tabby cat is not lapping milk just now, 
but leave the dairy door open, and we will 
see if she is not as bad a thief as the kitten. 
There's fire in the flint, cool as it looks : 
wait till the steel gets a knock at it, and you 
will see. Everybody can read that riddle, 
but it is not everybody that will remember 
to keep his gunpowder out of the way of 
the candle. 

If we would always recollect that we live 
among men who are imperfect, we should 
not be in such a fever when we find out our 
friends' failings ; what's rotten will rend, 
and cracked pots will leak. Blessed is he 
who expects nothing of poor flesh and 
blood, for he shall never be disappointed. 
The best of men are men at the best, and 
the best wax will melt. 

It is a good horse that never stumbles, 
And a good wife that never grumbles. 

But surely such horses and wives are only 



86 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

found in the fool's paradise, where dump- 
lings grow on trees. In this wicked world 
the straightest timber has knots in it, and 
the cleanest field of wheat has its share of 
weeds. The most careful driver one day 
upsets the cart, the cleverest cook spills a 
little broth, and as I know to my sorrow a 
very decent ploughman will now and then 
break the plough, and often make a crooked 
furrow. It is foolish to turn off a tried 
friend because of a failing or two, for you 
may get rid of a one-eyed nag and buy a 
blind one. Being all of us full of faults, we 
ought to keep two bears, and learn to bear 
and forbear with one another ; since we all 
live in glass houses, we should none of us 
throw stones. Everybody laughs when the 
saucepan says to the kettle, " How black 
you are ! " Other men's imperfections show 
us our imperfections, for one sheep is much 
like another ; and if there's an apple in my 
neighbor's eye, there is no doubt one in 
mine. We ought to use our neighbors as 
looking glasses to see our own faults in, and 
mend in ourselves what we see in them. 

I have no patience with those who poke 
their noses into every man's house to smell 



FAULTS. 87 

out his faults, and put on magnifying 
glasses to discover their neighbors' flaws ; 
such folks had better look at home, they 
might see the devil where they little ex- 
pected. What we wish to see we shall 
see, or think we see. Faults are always 
thick where love is thin. A white cow is 
all black if your eye chooses to make it so. 
If we sniff long enough at rose water, we 
shall find out that it has a bad smell. It 
would be a far more pleasant business, at 
least for other people, if fault hunters would 
turn their dogs to hunt out the good points 
in other folks ; the game would pay better, 
and nobody would stand with a pitchfork 
to keep the huntsmen off his farm. As for 
our own faults, it would take a large slate 
to hold the account of them, but, thank God, 
we know where to take them, and how to 
get the better of them. With all our faults, 
God loves us still if we are trusting in his 
Son, therefore let us not be downhearted, 
but hope to live and learn, and do some 
good service before we die. Though the 
cart creaks it will get home with its load, 
and the old horse, broken kneed as he is, 
will do a sight of work yet. There's no use 



88 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

in lying down and doing nothing, because 
we cannot do everything as we should like. 
Faults or no faults, ploughing must be done, 
and imperfect people must do it too, or 
there will be no harvest next year; bad 
ploughman as John may be, the angels 
won't do his work for him, and so he is off 
to do it himself. Go along, Violet ! Gee 
woa! Depper! 



THINGS NOT WORTH TRYING. 




" I have often been told to be bold, and take the bull by the 
horns." — Page 93. 

THAT is a wise old saying, " Spend not 
all you have ; believe not all you 
hear ; tell not all you know, and do not all 
you can." There is so much work to be 
done that needs our hands that it is a pity 

(89) 



90 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

to waste a grain of our strength. When 
the game is not worth the candle, drop it at 
once. It is wasting time to look for milk 
in a gate-post, or blood in a turnip, or sense 
in a fool. Never ask a covetous man for 
money till you have boiled a flint soft. 
Don't sue a debtor who has not a penny to 
bless himself with — you will only be throw- 
ing good money after bad, which is like 
losing your ferret without getting a rabbit. 
Never offer a looking-glass to a blind man : 
if a man is so proud that he will not see 
his faults, he will only quarrel with you for 
pointing them out to him. It is of no use to 
hold a lantern to a mole, or to talk of heaven 
to a man who cares for nothing but his dirty 
money. There's a time for everything, and 
it is a silly thing to preach to drunken men, 
it is casting pearls before swine ; get them 
sober, and. then talk to them soberly; if you 
lecture them while they are drunk, you act 
as if you were drunk yourself. 

Do not put a cat on a coach box, or men 
in places for which they are not fitted. 
There's no making apples of plums : little 
minds will still be little, even if you make 
them beadles or churchwardens. It's a pity 



THINGS NOT WORTH TRYING. 91 

to turn a monkey into a minister, or a maid- 
servant into a mistress. Many preachers 
are good tailors spoiled, and capital shoe- 
makers turned out of their proper calling. 
When God means a creature to fly, he gives 
it wings, and when he intends men to preach 
he gives them abilities. It is a pity to push 
a man into the war if he cannot fight. Bet- 
ter discourage a man's climbing than help 
him to break his neck. Silk purses are not 
to be made out of sows' ears, and pigs will 
never play well on the flute, teach them as 
long as you like. 

It is not wise to aim at impossibilities — 
it is a waste of powder to fire at the man in 
the moon. Making deal boards out of saw- 
dust is a very sensible scheme compared 
with what some of my London friends have 
been aiming at, for they have been trying to 
get money by buying shares in companies : 
they might quite as soon catch the wind in 
a net, or carry water in a sieve. Bubbles 
are fine fun for boys, but bubble com- 
panies are edged tools that none should 
play with. If my friend has money which 
he can afford to lose, there is still no reason 
why he should hand it over to a set of knaves : 



92 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

if I wanted to get rid of my leg, I should 
not get a shark to snap it off for me. Give 
your money to fools sooner than let rogues 
wheedle you out of it. 

It is never worth while to do unnecessary 
things. Never grease a fat sow, or praise a 
proud man. Don't make clothes for fishes, 
or coverings for altars. Don't paint lilies 
or garnish the gospel. Never bind up a 
man's head before it is broken, or comfort a 
conscience that makes no confession. Never 
hold up a candle to show the sun, or try to 
prove a thing which nobody doubts. I 
would advise no one to attempt a thing 
which will cost more than it is worth. You 
may sweeten a dunghill with lavender water, 
and a bad living man may keep up a good 
character by an outward show T of religion, 
but it will turn out a losing business in the 
long run. If our nation were sensible, it 
would sweep out a good many expensive 
but useless people, who eat the malt which 
lies in the house that Jack built ; they live 
on the national estate, but do it little service. 
To pay a man a pound for earning a penny 
is a good deal wiser than keeping bishops 
who meet together by the score and consult 



THINGS NOT WORTH TRYING, 93 

about the best way of doing nothing. If 
my master's old dog was as sleepy as the 
bishops are, he would get shot or drowned, 
for he wouldn't be worth the amount of the 
dog-tax. However, their time of reckoning 
is on the road, as sure as Christmas is com- 
ing. 

Long ago my experience taught me not to 
dispute with anybody about tastes and whims; 
one might as well argue about what you 
can see in the fire. It is of no use plough- 
ing the air, or trying to convince a man 
against his will in matters of no consequence. 
It is useless to try to end a quarrel by get- 
ting angry over it ; it is much the same as 
pouring oil on a fire to quench it, and blow- 
ing coals with the bellows to put them out. 
Some people like rows — I don't envy their 
choice; I'd rather walk ten miles to get out 
of a dispute than half-a-mile to get into one. 
I have often been told to be bold, and take 
the bull by the horns, but, as I rather think 
that the amusement is more pleasant than 
profitable, I shall leave it to those who are 
so cracked already that an ugly poke with 
a horn would not damage their skulls. Sol- 
omon says, " Leave off strife before it be 



94 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

meddled with," which is much the same as 
if he had said, " Leave off before you be- 
gin. " When you see a mad dog, don't ar- 
gue with him unless you are sure of your 
logic ; better get out of his way, and if any- 
body calls you a coward, you need not call 
him a fool — everybody knows that. Med- 
dling in quarrels never answers ; let hornets' 
nests alone, and don't pull down old houses 
over your own head. Meddlers are sure to 
hurt their own characters; if you scrub 
other people's pigs, you will soon need 
scrubbing yourself. It is the height of folly 
to interfere between a man and his wife, for 
they will be sure to leave off fighting each 
other and turn their whole strength upon 
you — and serve you right too ; if you will 
put your spoon into other people's broth, 
and it scalds you, who is to blame but your- 
self? 

One thing more, don't attempt to make 
a strong-headed woman give way, but re- 
member — 

" If she will, she will, you may depend on't : 
If she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't. 

The other day I cut out of a newspaper 



THINGS NOT WORTH TRYING. 95 

a scrap from America, which shall be my 
tail-piece : — " Dip the Mississippi dry with a 
tea-spoon ; twist your heel into the toe of 
your boot ; send up fishing-hooks with bal- 
loons and fish for stars ; get astride a gossa- 
mer and chase a comet ; when a rain storm 
is coming down like the cataract of Niagara, 
remember where you left your umbrella ; 
choke a flea with a brickbat ! in short, prove 
everything hitherto considered impossible 
to be possible — but never attempt to coax 
a woman to say she will when she has made 
up her mind to say she won't." 



DEBT. 




" The poor debtor was set free, like a bird let out of a cage." — 
Page 98. 

WHEN I was a very small boy, in pina- 
fores, and went to a woman's school, 
it so happened that I wanted a stick of slate 
pencil, and had no money to buy it with. 
(96) 



DEBT, 97 

I was afraid of being scolded for losing my 
pencils so often, for I was a real careless 
little fellow, and so did not dare to ask at 
home ; what then was John to do ? There 
was a little shop in the place, where nuts, 
and tops, and cakes, and balls were sold by- 
old Mrs. Dearson, and sometimes I had seen 
boys and girls get trusted by the old lady. I 
argued with myself that Christmas was com- 
ing, and that somebody or other would be sure 
to give me a penny then, and perhaps even a 
whole silver sixpence. I would, therefore, 
go into debt for a stick of slate pencil, and be 
sure to pay at Christmas. I did not feel 
easy about it, but still I screwed my courage 
up and went into the shop. One farthing 
was the amount, and as I had never owed 
anything before, and my credit was good, 
the pencil was handed over by the kind 
dame, and / was in debt. It did not please 
me much, and I felt as if I had done wrong, 
but I little knew how soon I should smart 
for it. How my father came to hear of this 
little stroke of business I never knew, but 
some little bird or other whistled it to him, 
and he was very soon down upon me in 
right earnest. God bless him for it ; he was 

7 



98 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

a sensible man, and none of your children 
spoilers ; he did not intend to bring up his 
children to speculate, and play at what big 
rogues call financing, and therefore he 
knocked my getting into debt on the head 
at once, and no mistake. He gave me a 
very powerful lecture upon getting into debt, 
and how like it was to stealing, and upon 
the way in which people were ruined by it ; 
and how a boy who would owe a farthing, 
might one day owe a hundred pounds, and 
get into prison, and bring his family into 
disgrace. It was a lecture, indeed ; I think 
I can hear it now, and can feel my ears ting- 
ling at the recollection of it. Then I was 
marched off to the shop like a deserter 
marched into barracks, crying bitterly all 
down the street, and feeling dreadfully 
ashamed, because I thought everybody knew 
I was in debt. The farthing was paid amid 
many solemn warnings, and the poor debtor 
was set free, like a bird let out of a cage. 
How sweet it felt to be out of debt ! How 
did my little heart vow and declare that 
nothing should ever tempt me into debt 
again ! It was a fine lesson, and I have 
never forgotten it. If all boys were inocu- 



DEBT. 99 

lated with the same doctrine when they were 
young, it would be as good as a fortune to 
them, and save them waggon-loads of 
trouble in after life. God bless my father, 
say I, and send a breed of such fathers into 
old England to save her from being eaten 
up with villainy, for what with companies 
and schemes and paper-money, the nation 
is getting to be as rotten as touchwood. 

Ever since that early sickening I have 
hated debt as Luther hated the Pope, and 
if I say some fierce things about it, you 
must not wonder. To keep debt, dirt, and 
the devil out of my cottage has been my 
greatest wish ever since I set up housekeep- 
ing ; and although the last of the three has 
sometimes got in by the door or the window, 
for the old serpent will wriggle through the 
smallest crack, yet, thanks to a good wife, 
hard work, honesty, and scrubbing brushes, 
the two others have not crossed the thresh- 
old. Debt is so degrading, that if I owed a 
man a penny I would walk twenty miles, in 
the depth of winter, to pay him, sooner than 
feel that I was under an obligation. I should 
be as comfortable with peas in my shoes, or 
a hedgehog in my bed, or a snake up my 



ioo JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

back, as with bills hanging over my head at 
the grocer's, and the baker's, and the tailor's. 
Poverty is hard, but debt is horrible ; a man 
might as well have a smoky house and a 
scolding wife, which are said to be the two 
worst evils of our life. We may be poor, 
and yet respectable, which John Ploughman 
and wife hope they are and will be ; but a 
man in debt cannot even respect himself, 
and he is sure to be talked about by the 
neighbors, and that talk will not be much to 
his credit. Some persons appear to like to 
be owing money ; but I would as soon be a 
cat up a chimney with the fire alight, or a 
fox with the hounds at my heels, or a hedge- 
hog on a pitchfork, or a mouse under an 
owl's claw. An honest man thinks a purse 
full of other people's money to be worse 
than an empty one ; he cannot bear to eat 
other people's cheese, wear other people's 
shirts, and walk about in other people's 
shoes, neither will he be easy while his wife 
is decked out in the milliner's bonnets, and 
wears the draper's flannels. The jackdaw in 
the peacock's feathers was soon plucked, and 
borrowers will surely come to poverty — a 



DEBT. 101 

poverty of the bitterest sort, because there 
is shame in it. 

Living beyond their incomes is the 
ruin of many of my neighbors ; they can 
hardly * afford to keep a rabbit, and must 
needs drive a pony and chaise. I am afraid 
extravagance is the common disease of the 
times, and many professing Christians have 
caught it, to their shame and sorrow. Good 
cotton or stuff gowns are not good enough 
nowadays ; girls must have silks and satins, 
and then there's a bill at the dressmaker's 
as long as a winter's night, and quite as 
dismal. Show, and style, and smartness 
run away with a man's means, keep the 
family poor, and the father's nose down on 
the grindstone. Frogs try to look as big as 
bulls, and burst themselves. A pound 
a-week apes five hundred a-year, and comes 
to the county court. Men burn the candle 
at both ends, and then say they are very 
unfortunate — why don't they put the saddle 
on the right horse, and say they are ex- 
travagant ? Economy is half the battle in 
life ; it is not so hard to earn money as to 
spend it well. Hundreds would never have 
known want if they had not first known 



102 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

waste. If all poor men's wives knew how 
to cook, how far a little might go ! Our 
minister says the French and the Germans 
beat us hollow in nice cheap cookery, I 
wish they would send missionaries over to 
convert our gossiping women into good 
managers ; this is a French fashion which 
would be a deal more useful than those fine 
pictures in Mrs. Frippery's window, with 
ladies rigged out in a new style every month. 
Dear me! some people are much too fine 
nowadays to eat what their fathers were 
thankful to see on the table, and so they 
please their palates with costly feeding, come 
to the workhouse, and expect everybody to 
pity them. They turned up their noses at 
bread and butter, and came to eat raw turnips 
stolen out of the fields. They who live like 
fighting cocks at other men's costs, will get 
their combs cut, or perhaps get roasted for 
it one of these days. If you have a great 
store of peas, you may put the more in the 
soup; but everybody should fare according 
to his earnings. He is both a fool and a 
knave who has a shilling coming in, and on 
the strength of it spends a pound which 
does not belong to him. Cut your coat 



DEBT. 103 

according to your cloth is sound advice; 
but cutting other peopled cloth by running 
into debt is as like thieving as fourpence is 
like a groat. If I meant to be a rogue I 
would deal in marine stores, or be a pettifog- 
ging lawyer, or a priest, or open a loan office, 
or go out picking pockets, but I would scorn 
the dirty art of getting into debt without a 
prospect of being able to pay. 

Debtors can hardly help being liars, for 
they promise to pay when they know they 
cannot, and when they have made up a lot 
of false excuses they promise again, and so 
they lie as fast as a horse can trot. 

" You have debts, and make debts still, 
If you've not lied, lie you will. " 

Now, if owing leads to lying, who shall 
say that it is not a most evil thing ? Of 
course, there are exceptions, and I do not 
want to bear hard upon an honest man who 
is brought down by sickness or heavy losses, 
but take the rule as a rule, and you will find 
debt to be a great dismal swamp, a huge mud- 
hole, a dirty ditch : happy is the man who 
gets out of it after once tumbling in, but 



104 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

happiest of all is he who has been by God's 
goodness kept out of the mire altogether. 
If you once ask the devil to dinner it will be 
hard to get him out of the house again : 
better to have nothing to do with him. 
Where a hen has laid one egg she is very 
likely to lay another; when a man is once 
in debt, he is likely to get into it again ; 
better keep clear of it from the first. He 
who gets in for a penny will soon be in for 
a pound, and when a man is over shoes, he 
is very liable to be over boots. Never owe 
a farthing, and you will never owe a guinea. 
If you want to sleep soundly, buy a bed 
of a man who is in debt; surely it must be 
a very soft one, or he never could have 
rested so easy on it. I suppose people get 
hardened to it, as Smith's donkey did when 
its master broke so many sticks across its 
back. It seems to me that a real honest 
man would sooner get as lean as a grey- 
hound than feast on borrowed money, and 
would choke up his throat with March dust 
before he would let the landlord make chalks 
against him behind the door for a beer score. 
What pins and needles tradesmen's bills 
must stick in a fellow's soul ! A pig on 



DEBT. 105 

credit always grunts. Without debt, with- 
out care ; out of debt, out of danger ; but 
owing and borrowing are bramble bushes 
full of thorns. If ever I borrow a spade of 
my next door neighbor I never feel safe 
with it for fear I should break it ; I never 
can dig in peace as I do with my own ; but 
if I had a spade at the shop and knew I 
could not pay for it, I think I should set to 
and dig my own grave out of shame. Script- 
ure says, " Owe no man anything," which 
does not mean pay your debts, but never 
have any to pay ; and my opinion is, that 
those who wilfully break this law ought to be 
turned out of the Christian church, neck and 
crop, as we say. Our laws are shamefully 
full of encouragement to credit : nobody 
need be a thief now ; he has only to open a 
shop and make a fail of it, and it will pay/ 
him much better ; as the proverb is, " He 
who never fails will never grow rich. " Why, 
I know tradesmen who have failed five or 
six times, and yet think they are on the 
road to heaven ; the scoundrels, what would 
they do if they got there ? They are a 
deal more likely to go where they shall 
never come out till they have paid the utter- 



106 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

most farthing. But people say, " How liberal 
they are ! " Yes, with other people's money. 
I hate to see a man steal a goose and then 
give religion the giblets. Piety by all means, 
but pay your way as part of it. Honesty 
first, then generosity. But how often re- 
ligion is a cloak for deceiving! There's 
Mrs. Scamp as fine as a peacock, all the 
girls out at boarding-school, learning French 
and the piano, the boys swelling about in 
kid gloves, and G. B. Scamp, Esq., driving 
a fast-trotting mare, and taking the chair at 
public meetings, while his poor creditors 
cannot get more than enough to live from 
hand to mouth. It is shameful and beyond 
endurance to see how genteel swindling is 
winked at by many in this country. I'd off 
with their white waistcoats, and kid gloves, 
and patent leather boots, if I had my way, 
and give them the county crop, and the 
prison livery for six months ; gentlemen or 
not, I'd let them see that big rogues could 
dance on the treadmill to the same tune as 
little ones. I'd make the land too hot to 
hold such scamping gentry if I were a mem- 
ber of Parliament, or a prime minister : as I've 
no such power, I can at least write against 



DEBT. 107 

the fellows, and let off the steam of my 
wrath in that way. 

My motto is, pay as you go, and keep 
from small scores. Short reckonings are 
soon cleared. Pay what you owe, and what 
you're worth you'll know. Let the clock 
tick, but no " tick " for me. Better go to 
bed without your supper than get up in debt. 
Sins and debts are always more than we 
think them to be. Little by little a man 
gets over head and ears. It is the petty ex- 
penses that empty the purse. Money is 
round, and rolls away easily. Tom Thrift- 
less buys what he does not want because it 
is a great bargain, and so is soon brought 
to sell what he does want, and find it a very 
little bargain ; he cannot say " No " to his 
friend who wants him to be security ; he 
gives grand dinners, makes many holidays, 
keeps a fat table, lets his wife dress fine, 
never looks after his servants, and by-and- 
by he is quite surprised to find that quarter- 
days come round so very fast, and that 
creditors bark so loud. He has sowed his 
money in the fields of thoughtlessness, and 
now he wonders that he has to reap the 
harvest of poverty. Still he hopes for 



108 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

something to turn up to help him out of 
difficulty, and so muddles himself into more 
troubles, forgetting that hope and expecta- 
tion are a fool's income. Being hard up, he 
goes to market with empty pockets, and 
buys at whatever prices tradesmen like to 
charge him, and so he pays more than 
double and gets deeper and deeper into the 
mire. This leads him to scheming, and try- 
ing little tricks and mean dodges, for it is 
hard for an empty sack to stand upright. 
This is sure not to answer, for schemes are 
like spiders' webs, which never catch any- 
thing better than flies, and are soon swept 
away. As well attempt to mend your shoes 
with brown paper, or stop a broken window 
with a sheet of ice, as try to patch up a 
falling business with manceuvering and 
scheming. When the schemer is found out, 
he is like a dog in church, whom everybody 
kicks at, and like a barrel of powder, which 
nobody wants for a neighbor. 

They say poverty is a sixth sense, and it 
had need be, for many debtors seem to have 
lost the other five, or were born without 
common sense, for they appear to fancy 
that you not only make debts, but pay them 



DEBT. 109 

by borrowing. A man pays Peter with 
what he has borrowed of Paul, and thinks 
he is getting out of his difficulties, when 
he is only putting one foot into the mud to 
pull his other foot out. It is hard to shave 
an egg, or pull hairs out of a bald pate, but 
they are both easier than paying debts out 
of an empty pocket. Samson was a strong 
man, but he could not pay debts without 
money, and he is a fool who thinks he can 
do it by scheming. As to borrowing money 
of loan societies, it's like a drowning man 
catching at razors ; both Jews and Gentiles, 
when they lend money, generally pluck the 
geese as long as they have any feathers. A 
man must cut down his outgoings and save 
his incomings if he wants to clear himself; 
you can't spend your penny and pay debts 
with it too. Stint the kitchen if the purse 
is bare. Don't believe in any way of wiping 
out debts except by paying hard cash. 
Promises make debts, and debts make 
promises, but promises never pay debts ; 
promising is one thing, and performing is 
quite another. A good man's word should 
be as binding as an oath, and he should 
never promise to pay unless he has a clear 



no JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

prospect of doing so in due time ; those who 
stave off payment by false promises, deserve 
no mercy. It is all very well to say " I'm 
very sorry, " but — 

" A hundred years of regret 
Pay not a farthing of debt." 

Now I'm afraid all this sound advice 
might as well have been given to my master's 
cocks and hens as to those who have got 
into the way of spending what is not their 
own, for advice to such people goes in at 
one ear and out at the other ; well, those 
who won't listen will have to feel, and those 
who refuse cheap advice will have to buy 
dear repentance; but to young people 
beginning life, a word may be worth a world, 
and this shall be John Ploughman's short 
sermon, with three heads to it — always live 
a little below your means, never get into 
debt, and remember — 

" He who goes a borrowing 
Goes a sorrowing." 



HOME. 




Merry times in Ploughman's Cottage.— Page 114. 

THAT word home always sounds like 
poetry to me. It rings like a peal 
of bells at a wedding, only more soft and 

(in) 



112 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

sweet, and it chimes deeper into the ears of 
my heart. It does not matter whether it 
means thatched cottage or manor house, 
home is home, be it ever so homely, and 
there's no place on earth like it. Green 
grow the houseleek on the roof for ever, and 
let the moss flourish on the thatch. Sweetly 
the sparrows chirrup and the swallows twit- 
ter around the chosen spot which is my joy 
and rest. Every bird loves its own nest ; 
the owl thinks the old ruins the fairest spot 
under the moon, and the fox is of opinion 
that his hole in the hill is remarkably cosy. 
When my master's nag knows that his head 
is towards home he wants no whip, but 
thinks it best to put on all steam ; and I am 
always of the same mind, for the way home 
to me, is the best bit of road in the country. 
I like to see the smoke out of my own chim- 
ney better than the fire on another man's 
hearth ; there's something so beautiful in 
the way in which it curls up among the 
trees. Cold potatoes on my own table 
taste better than roast meat at my neigh- 
bor's, and the honeysuckle at my own door 
is the sweetest I ever smell. When you are 
out, friends do their best, but still it is not 



HOME. 113 

home. " Make yourself at home," they say, 
because everybody knows that to feel at 
home is to feel at ease. 

" East and west, 
Home is best." 

Why, at home you are at home, and what 
more do you want ? Nobody grudges you, 
whatever your appetite may be ; and you 
don't get put into a damp bed. Safe is his own 
castle, like a king in his palace, a man feels 
himself somebody, and is not afraid of being 
thought proud for thinking so. Every cock 
may crow on his own dunghill ; and a dog 
is a lion when he is at home. A sweep is 
master inside his own door. No need to 
guard every word because some enemy is 
on the watch, no keeping the heart under 
lock and key ; but as soon as the door is 
shut it is liberty hall, and none to peep and 
pry. There is a glorious view from the top 
of Leith Hill, in our dear old Surrey, and 
Hindhead and Martha's Chapel, and Box- 
hill, are not to be sneezed at, but I could 
show you something which to my mind 
beats them all to nothing for real beauty : 
I mean John Ploughman's cottage, with the 



114 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

kettle boiling on the hob, singing like an 
unfallen black angel, while the cat is lying 
asleep in front of the fire, and the wife in her 
chair mending stockings, and the children 
cutting about the room, as full of fun as 
young lambs. It is a singular fact, and 
perhaps some of you will doubt it, but 
that is your unbelieving nature, our little 
ones are real beauties, always a pound or 
two plumper than others of their age, and 
yet it don't tire you half so much to nurse 
them as it does other people's babies. Why, 
bless you, my wife would knock up in half 
the time, if her neighbor had asked her to 
see to a strange youngster, but her own 
children don't seem to tire her at all ; now 
my belief is that it all comes of their having 
been born at home. Just so is it with 
everything else; our lane is the most 
beautiful for twenty miles round, because 
our home is in it ; and my garden is a per- 
fect paradise, for no other particular reason 
than this very good one, that it belongs to 
the old house at home. 

I cannot make out why so many work- 
ing men spend their evenings at the public 
house, when their own fireside would be so 



HOME. 115 

much better and cheaper too. There they 
sit, hour after hour, boozing and talking 
nonsense, and forgetting the dear good souls 
at home who are half starved and weary 
with waiting for them. Their money goes 
into the publican's till when it ought to 
make their wives and children comfortable ; 
as for the beer they get, it is just so much 
fools' milk to drown their wits in. Such 
fellows ought to be horse-whipped, and those 
who encourage them and live on their 
spendings deserve to feel the butt end of 
the whip. Those beershops are the curse 
of this country — no good ever can come 
of them, and the evil they do no tongue 
can tell ; the publics were bad enough, 
but the beershops are a pest ; I wish the 
man who made the law to open them had 
to keep all the families that they have 
brought to ruin. Beershops are the ene- 
mies of home, and therefore the sooner 
their licenses are taken away the better; 
poor men don't need such places, nor rich 
men either, they are all worse and no bet- 
ter, like Tom Norton's wife. Anything that 
hurts the home is a curse, and ought to be 



n6 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

hunted down as gamekeepers do the vermin 
in the copses. 

Husbands should try to make home happy 
and holy. It is an ill bird that fouls its own 
nest, a bad man who makes his home 
wretched. Our house ought to be a little 
church, with holiness to the Lord over the 
door, but it ought never to be a prison where 
there is plenty of rule and order, but little 
love and no pleasure. Married life is not all 
sugar, but grace in the heart will keep away 
most of the sours. Godliness and love can 
make a man, like a bird in a hedge, sing 
among thorns and briers, and set others a 
singing too. It should be the husband's 
pleasure to please his wife, and the wife's 
care to care for her husband. He is kind 
to himself who is kind to his wife. I am 
afraid some men live by the rule of self, and 
when that is the case home happiness is a 
mere sham. When husbands and wives are 
well yoked, how light their load becomes ! 
It is not every couple that is a pair, and the 
more's the pity. In a true home all the 
strife is which can do the most to make the 
family happy. A home should be a Bethel, 
not a Babel. The husband should be the 



HOME. 117 

houseband, binding all together like a corner 
stone, but not crushing everything like a 
mill-stone. Unkind and domineering hus- 
bands ought not to pretend to be Christians, 
for they act clean contrary to Christ's 
commands. Yet a home must be well or- 
dered, or it will become a Bedlam, and be a 
scandal to the parish. If the father drops 
the reins, the family-coach will soon be in 
the ditch. A wise mixture of love and 
firmness will do it ; but neither harshness nor 
softness alone will keep home in happy order. 
Home is no home where the children are 
not in obedience, it is rather a pain than 
a pleasure to be in it. Happy is he who 
is happy in his children, and happy are 
the children who are happy in their father. 
All fathers are not wise. Some are like 
Eli, and spoil their children. Not to cross 
our children is the way to make a cross 
of them. Those who never give their 
children the rod must not wonder if their 
children become a rod to them. Solomon 
says, " Correct thy son, and he shall give 
thee rest ; yea, he shall give delight to thy 
soul." I am not clear that anybody wiser 
than Solomon lives in our time, though 



Ii8 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

some think they are. Young colts must 
be broken in or they will make wild 
horses. Some fathers are all fire and 
fury, filled with passion at the smallest 
fault ; this is worse than the other, and 
makes home a little hell instead of a heaven. 
No wind makes the miller idle, but too 
much upsets the mill altogether. Men 
who strike in their anger generally miss 
their mark. When God helps us to hold 
the reins firmly, but not to hurt the horses' 
mouths, all goes well. When home is 
ruled according to God's word, angels 
might be asked to stay a night with us, and 
they would not find themselves out of their 
element. 

Wives should feel that home is their 
place and their kingdom, the happiness of 
which depends mostly upon them. She 
is a wicked wife who drives her husband 
away by her long tongue. A man said to 
his wife the other day, " Double up your 
whip ; " he meant, keep you tongue quiet : 
it is wretched living with such a whip al- 
ways lashing you. When God gave to 
men ten measures of speech, they say the 
women ran away with nine, and in some 



HOME. 119 

cases I am afraid the saying is true. A 
dirty, slatternly, gossiping wife is enough 
to drive her husband mad ; and if he goes 
to the public house of an evening, she is 
the cause of it. It is doleful living where 
the wife, instead of reverencing her hus- 
band, is always wrangling and railing at 
him. It must be a good thing when such 
women are hoarse, and it is a pity that 
they have not as many blisters on their 
tongues as they have teeth in their jaws. 
God save us all from wives who are an- 
gels in the streets, saints in the church, and 
devils at home. I have never tasted of such 
bitter herbs, but I pity from my very 
heart those who have this diet every day of 
their lives. 

Show me a loving husband, a worthy 
wife, and good children, and no pair of 
horses that ever flew along the road could 
take me in a year where I could see a more 
pleasing sight. Home is the grandest of 
all institutions. Talk about parliament, 
give me a quiet little parlor. Boast about 
voting and the Reform Bill if you like, 
but I go in for weeding the little garden, 
and teaching the children their hymns. 



iio JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

Franchise may be a very fine thing, but I 
should a good deal sooner get the free- 
hold of my cottage, if I could find the 
money to buy it. Magna Charta I don't 
know much about, but if it means a quiet 
home for everybody, three cheers for it. 

I wish our governors would not break 
up so many poor men's homes by that 
abominably heartless poor law. It is far 
more fit for a set of Red Indians than 
Englishmen. A Hampshire carter told 
me the other day that his wife and chil- 
dren were all in the union, and his home 
broken up, because of the cruel working 
of the poor law. He had eight little ones 
and his wife to keep on nine shillings a 
week, with rent to pay out of it ; on this 
he could not keep body and soul together; 
now, if the parish had allowed him a mere 
trifle, a loaf or two and a couple of shil- 
lings a week, he would have jogged on, 
but no, not a penny out of the house ; 
they might all die of starvation unless they 
would all go into the workhouse. So, with 
many bitter tears and heartaches, the poor 
soul had to sell his few little bits of furni- 
ture, and he is now a houseless man, and 



HOME. 121 

yet he is a good hard-working fellow, and 
served one master for nearly twenty years. 
Such things are very common, but they 
ought not to be. Why cannot the really 
deserving poor have a little help given 
them ? Why must they be forced into the 
union house ? Home is the pillar of the 
British Empire, and ought not to be knocked 
to pieces by these unchristian laws. I wish 
I was an orator and could talk politics, I 
would not care a rush for Whigs or Tories, 
but I would stand up like a lion for the 
poor man's home, which, let me tell the 
Lords and Commons, is as dear to him as 
their great palaces are to them, and some- 
times dearer. 

If I had no home the world would be a 
big prison to me. England for me for a 
country, Surrey for a county, and for a vil- 
lage give me — no, I shan't tell you, 

or you will be hunting John Ploughman 
up. Many of my friends have emigrated, 
and are breaking up fresh soil in Australia 
and America. Though their stone has rolled, 
I hope they may gather moss, for when 
they were at home they were like the set- 
ting hen, which gets no barley. Really 



122 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

these hard times make a man think of his 
wings, but I am tied by the leg to my own 
home, and, please God, I hope to live and 
die among my own people. They may do 
things better in France and Germany, but 
old England for me, after all. 



MEN WHO ARE DOWN. 




' Where the carcass is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." 
Page 124. 

NO man's lot is fully known till he is 
dead : change of fortune is the lot 
of life. He who rides in the carriage may 
yet have to clean it. Sawyers change 

(123) 



124 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

places, and he who is up aloft may have to 
take his turn in the pit. In less than a 
thousand years we shall all be bald and 
poor too, and who knows what he may 
come to before that ? The thought that we 
may ourselves be one day under the win- 
dow should make us careful when we are 
throwing out our dirty water. With what 
measure we mete it shall be measured to us 
again, and therefore let us look well to our 
dealings with the unfortunate. 

Nothing makes me more sick of human 
nature than to see the way in which men 
treat others when they fall down the ladder 
of fortune. " Down with him," they cry, 
" he always was good for nothing." 

" Down among the dead men, down, down, down, 
Down among the dead men, there let him lie." 

Dog won't eat dog, but men will eat each 
other up like cannibals, and boast of it too. 
There are thousands in this world who fly 
like vultures to feed on a tradesman or a 
merchant as soon as ever he gets into trou- 
ble. Where the carcass is, thither will the 
eagles be gathered together. Instead of a 
little help, they give the sinking man a 



MEN WHO ARE DOWN, 125 

great deal of cruelty, and cry, " Serves him 
right. " All the world will beat the man 
whom fortune buffets. If providence smites 
him, all men's whips begin to crack. The 
dog is drowning, and therefore all his 
friends empty their buckets over him. The 
tree has fallen, and everybody runs for his 
hatchet. The house is on fire, and all the 
neighbors warm themselves. The man has 
ill luck, therefore his friends give him ill 
usage; he has tumbled into the road, and 
they drive their carts over him : he is down, 
and selfishness cries, " Let him be kept 
down, then there will be the more room for 
those who are up." 

How aggravating it is when those who 
knocked you down kick you for not stand- 
ing up ! It is not very pleasant to hear 
that you have been a great fool, and there 
were fifty ways at least of keeping out of 
your difficulty, only you had not the sense 
to see them. You ought not to have lost 
the game ; even Tom Fool can see where 
you made a bad move. " He ought to have 
locked the stable door ; " everybody can see 
that, but nobody offers to buy the loser a 
new nag. " What a pity he went so far on 



126 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

the ice ! " That's very true, but that won't 
save the poor fellow from drowning. When 
a man's coat is threadbare, it is an easy- 
thing to pick a hole in it. Good advice is 
poor food for a hungry family. 

" A man of words and not of deeds, 
Is like a garden full of weeds." 

Lend me a bit of string to tie up the traces, 
and find fault with my old harness when I 
get home. Help my old horse to a few 
oats, and then tell him to mend his pace. 
Feel for me and I shall be much obliged 
to you, but mind you feel in your pocket, 
or else a fig for your feelings. 

Most men who go down hill meet with 
Judas before they get to the bottom. 
Those whom they helped in their better 
days generally forget the debt, or repay it 
with unkindness. The young sucker runs 
away with the sap from the old tree. The 
foal drains his mother, and then kicks her. 
The old saying is, " I taught you to swim, 
and now you would drown me," and many 
a time it comes true. The dog wags his 
tail till he gets the bone, and then he snaps 
and bites at the man who fed him. Eaten 



MEN WHO ARE DOWN. 127 

bread is forgotten, and the hand that gave 
it is despised. The candle lights others 
and is burnt away itself. For the most part, 
nothing is more easily blotted out than a 
good turn. Everyone for himself is the 
world's golden rule, and we all know who 
takes the hindmost. The fox looks after 
his own skin, and has no idea of losing his 
brush out of gratitude to a friend. 

A noble spirit always takes the side of 
the weak, but noble spirits do not often 
ride along our roads ; they are as scarce 
as eagles : you can get magpies, and hawks, 
and kites by the score, but the nobler breed 
you don't see once in a lifetime. Did you 
ever hear the crows read the burial service 
over a dead sheep before they eat it? 
Well, that's wonderfully like the neigh- 
bors crying, " What a pity ! How did 
it happen ? Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! " and 
then falling to work to get each of them a 
share of the plunder. Most people will 
help those who do not need it ; every trav- 
eller throws a stone where there is a 
heap already ; all the cooks baste the fat 
pig, and the lean one gets burned. 



128 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

u In times of prosperity friends will be plenty : 
In times of adversity not one in twenty." 

When the wind serves, all aid. While the 
pot boils, friendship blooms. But flatterers 
haunt not cottages, and the faded rose no 
suitor knows. All the neighbors are cous- 
ins to the rich man, but the poor man's 
brother does not know him. When we 
have a ewe and a lamb, everyone cries, 
"Welcome, Peter!" The squire can be 
heard for half-a-mile, if he only whispers, 
but Widow Needy is not heard across 
the park railings, let her call as she may. 
Men willingly pour water into a full tub, 
and give feasts to those who are not hun- 
gry, because they look to have as good or 
better in return. Have a goose and get a 
goose. Have a horse of your own, and 
then you can borrow one. It is safe to lend 
barley where the barn is full of wheat, but 
who lends or gives where there's none? 
Who, indeed, unless it be some antiquated 
old soul who believes in his Bible, and loves 
his Lord, and therefore gives, " hoping for 
nothing again "? 

I have noticed certain gentry who pre- 
tend to be great friends to a falling man 



MEN WHO ARE DOWN. 129 

because there are some few pickings yet to 
to be got off his bones. The lawyer and 
the money-lender will cover the poor fellow 
with their wings, and then peck at him with 
their bills till there's nothing left. When 
these folks are very polite and considerate, 
poor men had need beware. It was not a 
good sign when the fox walked into the 
hen-roost and said, " Good morning to you 
all, my very dear friends. " 

Dov/n men, however, must not despair, 
for God is yet alive, and he is the friend of 
the friendless. If there be no one else 
found to hold out a hand to him who has 
fallen, the Lord's hand shall not fail to 
bring deliverance to those who trust him. 
A good man may be put in the fire, but he 
cannot be burned. His hope may be 
drenched but not drowned. He plucks up 
courage and sets a stout heart to a stiff hill, 
and gets over rough ground where others 
lie down and die. While there's life there's 
hope. Therefore, my friend, if you've tum- 
bled off the back of prosperity, John Plough- 
man bids you not lie in the ditch, but up 
with you and try again. Jonah went to the 
9 



130 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

bottom of the sea, but he got to shore again 
all the better for his watery journey. 

** Though the bird's in the net, 
It may get away yet ; 
Though I'm down in the dust, 
In my God I will trust, 
I will hope in him still, 
And leave all to his will ; 
For he'll surely appear, 
And will banish my fear." 

Let it never be forgotten that when a 
man is down he has a grand opportunity 
for trusting in God. A false faith can only 
float in smooth water, but true faith, like a 
life-boat, is at home in storms. If our re- 
ligion does not bear us up in time of trial 
what is the use of it? If we cannot be- 
lieve God when our circumstances appear 
to be against us we do not believe him 
at all. We trust a thief as far as we can 
see him, shall we dare to treat our God in 
that fashion ? No, no. The Lord is good, 
and he will yet appear for his servants, and 
we shall praise his name. 

" Down among the dead men " ! No, sir, not I. 

" Down among the dead men " ! I will not lie. 
Up among the hopeful I will ascend, 
Up among the joyful sing without end. 



HOPE. 

EGGS are eggs, but some are rotten ; 
and so hopes are hopes, but many of 
them are delusions. Hopes are like women, 
there is a touch of angel about them all, but 
there are two sorts. My boy Tom has 
been blowing a lot of birds'-eggs, and 
threading them on a string; I have been 
doing the same thing with hopes, and here's 
a few of them, good, bad, and indifferent. 

The sanguine man's hope pops up in a 
moment like jack-in-the-box ; it works with 
a spring, and does not go by reason. When- 
ever this man looks out of the window he 
sees better times coming, and although it 
is nearly all in his own eye, and nowhere 
else, yet to see plum puddings in the moon 
is a far more cheerful habit than croaking 
at everything like a two-legged frog. This 
is the kind of brother to be on the road 
with on a pitch-dark night, when it pours 
with rain, for he carries candles in his eyes 
and a fireside in his heart. Beware of being 
misled by him, and then you may safely 
keep his company. His fault is that he 
counts his chickens before they are hatched, 
and sells his herrings before they are in the 

' (131) 



132 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

net. All his sparrow's-eggs are bound to 
turn into thrushes, at the least, if not par- 
tridges and pheasants. Summer has fully 
come, for he has seen one swallow. He is 
sure to make his fortune at his new shop, 
for he had not opened the door five min- 
utes before two of the neighbors crowded 
in, one of them wanted a loaf of bread on 
trust, and the other asked change for a shil- 
ling. He is certain that the squire means 
to give him his custom, for he saw him 
reading the name over the shop door as he 
rode past. He does not believe in slips be- 
tween cups and lips, but makes certainties 
out of perhapses. Well, good soul, though 
he is a little soft at times, there is much in 
him to praise, and I like to think of one of 
his odd sayings, " Never say die till you are 
dead, and then it's no use, so let it alone. ,, 
There are other odd people in the world, 
you see, besides John Ploughman. 

My neighbor Shiftless is waiting for his 
aunt to die, but the old lady has as many 
lives as nine cats, and my notion is that 
when she does die she will leave her little 
money to the Hospital for Diseased Cats or 
Stray Dogs, sooner than her nephew Jack 




(133) 



134 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

shall have it. Poor creature, he is dread- 
fully down at the heel, and lays it all on the 
dear old lady's provoking constitution. How- 
ever, he hopes on, and gets worse and 
worse, for while the grass grows the horse 
starves. He pulls at a long rope who waits 
for another's death; he who hunts after 
legacies had need have iron shoes. He that 
waits for dead men's shoes may long go 
barefoot ; he who waits for his uncle's cow 
need not be in a hurry to spread the but- 
ter. He who lives on hope has a slim diet. 
If Jack Shiftless had never had an aunt he 
might have tucked up his shirt sleeves and 
worked for himself, but they told him that 
he was born with a silver spoon in his 
mouth, and that made a spoon of him, so 
that he is no more use at work than a cow 
at catching hares. If anybody likes to leave 
John Ploughman a legacy, he will be very 
much obliged to them, but they had better 
not tell him of it for fear he should not 
plough so straight a furrow ; they had bet- 
ter make it twice as much, and take him by 
surprise. On the whole, it would be better 
to leave it to the Pastors* College or the 
Stockwell Orphanage, for it will be well 



HOPE. 135 

used in either case. Did you notice the 
drawings of these two places a page or two 
back? Fix them well in your mind's eye. 
But now we must get back to our subject. 
I wish people would think less about wind- 
falls, and plant more apple trees. Hopes 
that grow out of graves are grave mistakes ; 
and when they cripple a man's own ener- 
gies, they are a sort of hangman's rope, 
dangling round a man's neck. 

Some people were born on the first of 
April, and are always hoping without sense 
or reason. Their ship is to come home, they 
are to dig up a pot of gold, or to hear of 
something to their advantage. Poor sillies, 
they have wind on the brain, and dream 
while they are awake. They may hold 
their mouths open a long while before fried 
ham and eggs will come flying into them, 
and yet they really seem to believe that 
some stroke of luck, some windfall of golden 
apples, will one day set them up and make 
gentlemen of them. They hope to ride in 
their coaches, and by-and-by find them- 
selves shut up in a place where the coaches 
won't run over them. You may whistle a 
long while before goldfinches will hop on 



136 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

to your thumb. Once in a while one man 
in a million may stumble against a fortune, 
but thousands ruin themselves by idle ex- 
pectations. Expect to get half of what you 
earn, a quarter of what is your due, and 
none of what you have lent, and you will 
be near the mark ; but to look for a fortune 
to fall from the moon is to play the fool 
with a vengeance. A man ought to hope 
within the bounds of reason and the prom- 
ises of the good old Book. Hope leans on 
an anchor, but an anchor must have some- 
thing to hold by and to hold to. A hope 
without grounds is a tub without a bottom, 
a horse without a head, a goose without a 
body, a shoe without a sole, a knife without 
a blade. Who but Simple Simon would be- 
gin to build a house at the top ? there must 
be a foundation. Hope is no hope, but 
sheer folly, when a man hopes for impossi- 
bilities, or looks for crops without sowing 
seed, and for happiness without doing good. 
Such hopes lead to great boast and small 
roast ; they act like a jack-o'-lantern, and 
lead men into the ditch. There's poor Will 
at the workhouse, who always declares that 
he owns a great estate, only the right owner 



HOPE. 137 

keeps him out of it ; his name is Jenyns, or 
Jennings, and somebody of that name he 
says has left enough money to buy the 
Bank of England, and one day he is to have 
a share of it ; but meanwhile poor Will 
finds the parish broth poor stuff for such a 
great gentleman's stomach ; he has prom- 
ised me an odd thousand or two when he 
gets his fortune, and I am going to build a 
castle in the air with it, and ride to it on a 
broomstick. Poor soul, like a good many 
others, he has windmills in his head, and 
may make his will on his thumbnail for 
anything that he has to give. Depend upon 
it, ploughing the air is not half so profitable 
as it is easy : he who hopes in this world 
for more than he can get by his own earn- 
ings hopes to find apricots on a crab-tree. 
He who marries a slovenly, dressy girl, and 
hopes to make her a good wife, might as 
well buy a goose and expect it to turn out 
a milch cow. He who takes his boys to the 
beershop, and trusts that they will grow up 
sober, puts his coffee-pot on the fire and ex- 
pects to see it look bright as new tin. Men 
cannot be in their senses when they brew 
with bad malt and look for good beer, or 



138 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

set a wicked example and reckon upon 
raising a respectable family. You may hope 
and hope till your heart grows sick ; but 
when you send your boy up the chimney, 
he'll come down black for all your hoping. 
Teach a child to lie, and then hope that he 
will grow up honest ; better put a wasp in 
a tar barrel and wait till he makes you 
honey. When will people act sensibly with 
their boys and girls ? Not till they are 
sensible themselves. 

As to the next world, it is a great pity 
that men do not take a little more care 
when they talk of it. If a man dies drunk, 
somebody or other is sure to say, " I hope 
he is gone to heaven." It is all very well 
to wish it, but to hope it is another thing. 
Men turn their faces to hell and hope to 
get to heaven ; why don't they walk into 
the horsepond, and hope to be dry ? Hopes 
of heaven are solemn things, and should be 
tried by the word of God. A man might 
as well hope, as our Lord says, to gather 
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles as look for 
a happy hereafter at the end of a bad life. 
There is only one rock to build good hopes 
on, and that is not Peter, as the pope says, 



HOPE. 139 

neither is it sacraments, as the old Roman 
beast's cubs tell us, but the merits of the 
Lord Jesus. All the hope of man is in 
" the man Christ Jesus." If we believe in 
him we are saved, for it is written u he that 
believeth in him hath everlasting life." Mind 
he has it now, and it is everlasting, so that 
there is no fear of his losing it. There John 
Ploughman rests, and he is not afraid of 
being confounded, for this is a firm footing, 
and gives him a hope sure and steadfast, 
which neither life nor death can shake ; 
but John must not turn preacher, or he may- 
take the bread out of the parson's mouth, 
so please remember that presumption is a 
ladder which will break the mounter's neck, 
and don't try it, as you love your soul. 



SPENDING. 




" What their fathers got with the rake they throw away with the 
shovel/' — Page 141. 

TO earn money is easy compared with 
spending it well ; anybody may dig up 
potatoes, but it is not one woman in ten that 
(140) 



SPENDING. 141 

can cook them. Men do not become rich 
by what they get, but by what they save. 
Many men who have money are as short of 
wit as a hog is of wool ; they are under the 
years of discretion though they have turned 
forty, and make ducks and drakes of hun- 
dreds as boys do of stones. What their 
fathers got with the rake they throw away 
with the shovel. After the miser comes the 
prodigal. Often men say of the spendthrift, 
his old father was no man's friend but his 
own, and now the son is no man's enemy 
but his own : the fact is, the old gentleman 
went to hell by the lean road, and his son 
has made up his mind to go there by the 
fat. As soon as the spendthrift gets his 
estate it goes like a lump of butter in a 
greyhound's mouth. All his days are the 
first of April ; he would buy an elephant at 
a bargain, or thatch his house with pancakes, 
nothing is too foolish to tickle his fancy ; 
his money burns holes in his pocket, and 
he must squander it, always boasting that 
his motto is, u Spend, and God will send." 
He will not stay till he has his sheep before 
he shears them ; he forestalls his income, 
draws upon his capital, and so kills the 



142 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

goose which lays the golden eggs, and cries 
out, " Who would have thought it ? " He 
never spares at the brim, but he means, he 
says, to save at the bottom. He borrows 
at high interest of Rob'em, Cheat'em, and 
Sell'em-up, and when he gets cleaned out, 
he lays it all either upon the lawyers or 
else on the bad times. Times never were 
good for lazy prodigals, and if they were 
good to them they would be bad for all the 
world besides. Why men should be in such 
a hurry to make themselves beggars is a 
mystery, but nowadays, what with betting 
at horse-races, laziness, and speculating, 
there seems to be a regular four-horse coach 
running to Needham every day. Ready- 
money must be quite a curiosity to some 
men, and yet they spend like lords. They 
are gentlemen without means, which is 
much the same as plum-puddings without 
plums. 

Spending your money with many a guest, 
Empties the larder, the cellar, and chest. 

If a little gambling is thrown in with the 
fast living, money melts like a snowball in 



SPENDING. 143 

an oven. A young gambler is sure to be 
an old beggar if he lives long enough. 



The devil leads him by the nose, 
Who the dice so often throws. 



There are more asses than those with four 
legs. I am sorry to say they are found 
among working men as well as fine gentle- 
men. Fellows who have no estate but their 
labor, and no family arms except those 
they work with, will yet spend their little 
hard earnings at the beershop or in waste. 
No sooner are their wages paid than away 
they go to the " Spotted Dog," or the 
" Marquis of Granby," to contribute their 
share of fools' pence towards keeping up the 
landlord's red face and round corporation. 
Drinking water neither makes a man sick 
nor in debt, nor his wife a widow, and yet 
some men hardly know the flavor of it; 
but beer guzzled down as it is by many a 
working man, is nothing better than brown 
ruin. Dull droning blockheads sit on the 
ale bench and wash out what little sense 
they ever had. However, I believe that 
farming people are a deal better managers 



144 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

with their money than Londoners are, for 
though their money is very little, their 
families look nice and tidy on Sundays. 
True, the rent isn't so bad in a village as in 
the town, and there's a bit of garden ; still, 
those Londoners earn a deal of money, and 
they have many chances of buying in a 
cheap market which the poor countryman 
has not ; and, on the whole, I think 'tis 
very good management which keeps a 
family going on ten shillings a week in the 
country, and bad management that can't 
pay its way on five-and-twenty in London. 
Why, some families are as merry as mice in 
malt on very small wages, and others are 
as wretched as rats in a trap on double the 
amount. Those who wear the shoe know 
best where it pinches, but economy is a 
fine thing, and makes ninepence go further 
than a shilling. Some make soup out of a 
flint, and others can't get nourishment out 
of beef gravy. Some go to shop with as 
much wit as Samson had in both his shoul- 
ders, but no more ; they do not buy well ; 
they have not sense to lay out their money 
to advantage. Buyers ought to have a 
hundred eyes, but these have not even half 



SPENDING. 145 

a one, and they do not open that ; well was 
it said that if fools did not go to market 
bad wares would never be sold. They never 
get a pennyworth for their penny, and this 
often because they are on the hunt for cheap 
things, and forget that generally the cheap- 
est is the dearest, and one cannot buy a good 
shilling's worth of a bad article. When 
there's five eggs a penny, four of them are 
rotten. Poor men often buy in very small 
quantities, and so pay through the nose ; 
for a man who buys by the pennyworth 
keeps his own house and another man's. 
Why not get two or three weeks' supply at 
once, and so get it cheaper ? Store is no 
sore. People are often saving at the wrong 
place, and spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of 
tar ; others look after small savings and for- 
get greater things ; they are penny wise 
and pound foolish ; they spare at the spigot, 
and let all run away at the bunghole. 
Some buy things they don't want, because 
they are great bargains ; let me tell them 
that what they do not want is dear at a 
farthing. Fine dressing makes a great hole 
in poor people's means. Whatever does 
John Ploughman, and such as work hard 



146 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

for their daily bread, want with silks and 
satins ? It's like a blacksmith's wearing 
a white silk apron. I hate to see a ser- 
vant girl or a laborer's daughter tricked 
out as if she thought people would take 
her for a lady. Why, everybody knows a 
tadpole from a fish, nobody mistakes a poppy 
for a rose. Give me a woman in a nice 
neat dress, clean and suitable, and for beauty 
she will beat the flashy young hussies all to 
pieces. If a girl has got a few shillings to 
spare, let her buy a good bit of flannel for 
the winter, before she is tempted with bright 
looking but useless finery. Buy what suits 
yourself to wear, and if it does not suit other 
people to look at, let them shut their eyes. 
All women are good — either for something 
or. for nothing, and their dress will generally 
tell you which. 

I suppose we all find the money goes 
quite fast enough, but after all it was made 
to circulate, and there's no use in hoarding 
it. It is bad to see our money become a run- 
away servant, and leave us, but it would be 
worse to have it stop with us and become 
our master. We should try, as our minister 
says, " to find the golden mean," and neither 



SPENDING. 147 

De lavish nor stingy. He has his money 
best spent who has the best wife. The hus- 
band may earn money, but only the wife 
can save it. "A wise woman buildeth 
her house, but the foolish plucketh it down 
with her hands. " The wife it seems, accord- 
ing to Solomon, is the builder or the real 
puller down. A man cannot prosper till he 
gets his wife's leave. A thrifty housewife 
is better than a great income. A good wife 
and health are a man's best wealth. Bless 
their hearts, what should we do without 
them ? It is said they like to have their 
own way, but then the proverb says, a wife 
ought to have her will during life, because 
she cannot make one when she dies. The 
weather is so melting that I cannot keep up 
this talk any longer, and therefore I shall 
close with an oldfashioned rhyme — 

" Heaven bless the wives, they fill our hives 
With little bees and honey ! 
They soothe life's shocks, they mend our socks — 
But don't they spend the money ! " 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 




The sign of the " Good Woman." 

WE pulled up the horses in the last 
chapter at the sign of the " Good 
Woman;" and as there is good entertain- 
ment for man, if not for beast, under that 
sign, we will make a stay of it, and dip our 
(148)' 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 149 

pen into some of that superfine ink which 
has no galls in it. When he writes on so 
fair a subject, John Ploughman must be on 
his best behavior. 

It is astonishing how many old sayings 
there are against wives, you may find nine- 
teen to the dozen of them. The men years 
ago showed the rough side of their tongues 
whenever they spoke of their spouses. 
Some of these sayings are downright shock- 
ing; as, for instance, that very wicked one, 
" Every man has two good days with his 
wife — the day he marries her, and the day 
he buries her; " and that other, " He that 
loseth his wife and a farthing, has a great 
loss of the farthing." 

I recollect an old ballad that Gaffer Brooks 
used to sing about a man's being better 
hung than married, it shows how common 
it was to abuse the married life. It is al- 
most too bad to print it, but here it is, as 
near as I remember it : — 



" There was a victim in a cart, 
One day for to be hang'd, 
And his reprieve was granted, 
And the cart made for to stand. 



150 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

* Come marry a wife, and save your life,' 

The judge aloud did cry ; 

* Oh, why should I corrupt my life ? ' 

The victim did reply. 

* For here's a crowd of every sort, 

And why should I prevent their sport ? 
The bargain's bad in every part, 

The wife's the worst — drive on the cart.'" 

Now this rubbish does not prove that the 
women are bad, but that their husbands are 
good for nothing, or else they would not 
make up such abominable slanders about 
their partners. The rottenest bough cracks 
first, and it looks as if the male side of the 
house was the worse of the two, for it cer- 
tainly has made up the most grumbling 
proverbs. There have, no doubt, been 
some shockingly bad wives in the world, 
who have been provoking enough to make 
a man say, 

" If a woman were as little as she is good, 
A peashell would make her a gown and a hood." 

But how many thousands have there been 
of true helpmeets, worth far more than 
their weight in gold ! There is only one 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 151 

Job's wife mentioned in the Bible and one 
Jezebel, but there are no end of Sarahs and 
Rebekahs. I am of Solomon's mind, that, 
as a rule, he that findeth a wife findeth a 
good thing. If there's one bad shilling 
taken at the grocer's all the neighbors hear 
of it, but of the hundreds of good ones re- 
port says nothing. A good woman makes 
no noise, and no noise is made about her, 
but a shrew is noted all over the parish. 
Taking them for all in all, they are most 
angelical creatures, and a great deal too 
good for half the husbands. 

It is much to the woman's credit that 
there are very few old sayings against hus- 
bands, although, in this case, sauce for the 
goose would make capital sauce for the 
gander ; and the mare has as good reasons 
for kicking as the horse has. They must 
be very forbearing, or they would have 
given the men a Roland for every Oliver. 
Pretty dears, they may be rather quick in 
their talk, but is it not the nature of bells 
and belles to have tongues that swing easy ? 
They cannot be so very bad after all, or 
they would have had their revenge for the 
many cruel things which are said against 



152 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

them ; and if they are a bit masterful, their 
husbands cannot be such very great victims, 
or they would surely have sense enough to 
hold their tongues about it. Men don't 
care to have it known when they are 
thoroughly well henpecked, and I feel 
pretty certain that the old sayings are noth- 
ing but chaff, for if they were true, men 
would never dare to own it. 

A true wife is her husband's better half, 
his lump of delight, his flower of beauty, 
his guardian angel, and his heart's treasure. 
He says to her, " I shall in thee most 
happy be. In thee, my choice, I do rejoice. 
In thee I find content of mind. God's ap- 
pointment is my contentment." In her 
company he finds his earthly heaven ; she 
is the light of his home ; the comfort of 
his soul, and (for this world) the soul of his 
comfort. Whatever fortune God may send 
him, he is rich so long as she lives. His 
rib is the best bone in his body. 

The man who weds a loving wife, 
Whate'er betideth him in life, 

Shall bear up under all ; 
But he that finds an evil mate, 
No good can come within his gate, 

His cup is filFd with gall. 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 153 

A good husband makes a good wife. Some 
men can neither do without wives nor with 
them ; they are wretched alone in what is 
called single blessedness, and they make 
their homes miserable when they get mar- 
ried ; they are like Tompkin's dog, which 
could not bear to be loose, and howled 
when it was tied up. Happy bachelors are 
likely to be happy husbands, and a happy 
husband is the happiest of men. A well- 
matched couple carry a joyful life between 
them, as the two spies carried the cluster 
of Eshcol. They are a brace of birds of 
Paradise. They multiply their joys by 
sharing them, and lessen their troubles by 
dividing them ; this is fine arithmetic. The 
wagon of care rolls lightly along as they 
pull together, and when it drags a little 
heavily, or there's a hitch anywhere, they 
love each other all the more, and so lighten 
the labor. 

When a couple fall out there are always 
faults on both sides, and generally there is 
a pound on one and sixteen ounces on the 
other. When a home is miserable it is 
as often the husband's fault as the wife's. 
Darby is as much to blame as Joan, and 



154 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

sometimes more. If the husband won't 
keep sugar in the cupboard, no wonder his 
wife gets sour. Want of bread makes want 
of love ; lean dogs fight. Poverty generally 
rides home on the husband's back, for it is 
not often the woman's place to go out work- 
ing for wages. A man down our parts 
gave his wife a ring with this on it, 4< If thee 
don't work, thee shan't eat." He was a 
brute. It is no business of hers to bring 
in the grist — she is to see it is well used 
and not wasted ; therefore, I say, short 
commons are not her fault. She is not the 
bread-winner, but the bread-maker. She 
earns more at home than any wages she 
can get abroad. 

It is not the wife who smokes and drinks 
away the wages at the " Brown Bear," or 
the u Jolly Topers. " One sees a drunken 
woman now and then, and it's an awful 
sight, but in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred it is the man who comes home 
tipsy, and abuses the children — the woman 
seldom does that. The poor drudge of a 
wife is a teetotaler, whether she likes it or 
not, and gets plenty of hot water as well as 
cold. Women are found fault with for 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 155 

often looking into the glass, but that is not 
so bad a glass as men drown their senses 
in. The wives do not sit boozing over the 
tap-room fire ; they, poor souls, are shiver- 
ing at home with the baby, watching the 
clock (if there is one), wondering when 
their lords and masters will come home, 
and crying while they wait. I wonder they 
don't strike. Some of them are about as 
wretched as a cockchafer on a pin, or a 
mouse in a cat's mouth. They have to 
nurse the sick girl, and wash the dirty boy, 
and bear with the crying and noise of the 
children, while his lordship puts on his hat, 
lights his pipe, and goes off about his own 
pleasure, or comes in at his own time to 
find fault with his poor dame for not getting 
him a fine supper. How could he expect 
to be fed like a fighting-cock when he 
brought home so little money on Saturday 
night, and spent so much in worshipping Sir 
John Barleycorn ? I say it, and I know it, 
there's many a house where there would be 
no scolding wife if there was not a skulk- 
ing, guzzling husband. Fellows not fit to 
be cut up for mops drink and drink till all 
is blue, and then turn on their poor hacks 



156 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

for not having more to give them. Don't 
tell me, I say it, and will maintain it, a 
woman can't help being vexed when, with 
all her mending and striving, she can't keep 
house because her husband won't let her. 
It would provoke any of us if we had to 
make bricks without straw, keep the pot 
boiling without fire, and pay the piper out 
of an empty purse. What can she get out 
of the oven when she has neither meal nor 
dough ? You bad husbands, you are 
thoroughbred sneaks, and ought to be hung 
up by your heels till you know better. 

They say a man of straw is worth a 
woman of gold, but I cannot swallow it; 
a man of straw is worth no more than a 
woman of straw ; let old sayings lie as they 
like; Jack is no better than Jill, as a rule. 
When there is wisdom in the husband 
there's generally gentleness in the wife, and 
between them the old wedding wish is 
worked out : " One year of joy, another of 
comfort, and all the rest of content." Where 
hearts agree, there joy will be. United 
hearts death only parts. They say mar- 
riage is not often merry-age, but very com- 
monly mar-age ; well, if so, the coat and 



! 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 157 

waistcoat have as much to do with it as the 
gown and petticoat. The honeymoon need 
not come to an end ; and when it does it is 
often the man's fault for eating all the 
honey, and leaving nothing but moonshine : 
when they both agree that whatever be- 
comes of the moon they will each keep up 
their share of honey, there's merry living. 
When a man dwells under the sign of the 
cat's foot, where faces get scratched, either 
his wife did not marry a man or he did not 
marry a woman. If a man cannot take 
care of himself, his wit must be as scant as 
the wool of a blue dog. I don't pity most 
of the men martyrs ; I save my pity for the 
women. When the Dunmow flitch is lost, 
neither of the pair will eat the bacon ; but 
the wife is the most likely to fast for the 
want of it. Every herring must hang by 
its own gill, and every person must account 
for his own share in home quarrels, but 
John Ploughman can't bear to see all the 
blame laid on the women. Whenever a 
dish is broke, the cat did it, and whenever 
there is mischief, there's a woman at the 
bottom of it : here are two as pretty lies as 
you will meet with in a month's march. 



158 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

There's a why for every wherefore, but the 
why for family jars does not always lie with 
the housekeeper. I know some women 
have long tongues, then the more's the 
pity that the husbands should set them 
going; but for the matter of talk, just look 
into a bar-parlor when the men's jaws are 
well oiled with liquor, and if any woman 
living can talk faster or be more stupid 
than the men, my name is not John Plough- 
man. 

When I had got about as far as this, in 
stepped our minister, and he said, "John, 
you've got a tough subject, a cut above 
you ; I'll lend you a rare old book to help 
you over the stile." " Well, sir/' said I, 
" a little help is worth a great deal of fault- 
finding, and I shall be uncommonly obliged 
to you." He sent me down old William 
Seeker's " Wedding Ring," and a real wise 
fellow that Seeker was. I could not do 
any other than pick out some of his pithy 
bits ; they are very flavory, and such as 
are likely to glue themselves to the mem- 
ory. He says, " Hast thou a soft heart ? 
It is of God's breaking. Hast thou a sweet 
wife ? She is of God's making. The He- 



I 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 159 

brews have a saying, ' He is not a man that 
hath not a woman/ Though man alone 
may be good, yet it is not good that man 
should be alone. ' Every good gift and 
every perfect gift is from above/ A wife, 
though she be not a perfect gift, is a good 
gift, a beam darted from the Sun of mercy. 
How happy are those marriages where 
Christ is at the wedding ! Let none but 
those who have found favor in God's eyes 
find favor in yours. Husbands should 
spread a mantle of charity over their wives' 
infirmities. Do not put out the candle 
because of the snuff. Husbands and wives 
should provoke one another to love, and 
they should love one another notwithstand- 
ing provocations. The tree of love should 
grow up in the midst of the family as the 
tree of life grew in the garden of Eden. 
Good servants are a great blessing ; good 
children a greater blessing; but a good 
wife is the greatest blessing; and such a 
help let him seek for her that wants one ; 
let him sigh for her that hath lost one ; let 
him delight in her that enjoys one." 

To come down from the old Puritan's 
roast beef to my own pot-herbs, or, as they 



160 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

say, to put Jack after gentleman, I will tell 
my own experience, and have done. 

My experience of my first wife, who will 
I hope live to be my last, is much as fol- 
lows : matrimony came from Paradise and 
leads to it. I never was half so happy 
before I was a married man as I am now. 
When you are married your bliss begins. 
I have no doubt that where there is much 
love there will be much to love, and where 
love is scant faults will be plentiful. If 
there is only one good wife in England, I 
am the man who put the ring on her finger, 
and long may she wear it. God bless the 
dear soul if she can put up with me, she 
shall never be put down by me. 

If I were not married to-day, and saw a 
suitable partner, I would be married to- 
morrow morning before breakfast. What 
think you of that ? " Why," says one, " I 
think John would get a new wife if he were 
left a widower." Well, and what if he did, 
how could he better show that he was 
happy with his first ? I declare I would 
not say, as some do, that they married to 
have some one to look after the children ; I 
should marry to have some one to look 



A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES. 161 

after myself. John Ploughman is a socia- 
ble soul, and could not do in a house by 
himself. One man, when he married his 
fourth wife, put on the ring — 

" If I survive, I'll make it five." 

What an old Bluebeard ! ! Marriages are 
made in heaven : matrimony in itself is good, 
but there are fools who turn meat into 
poison, and make a blessing into a curse. 
" This is a good rope," said Pedley, " I'll 
hang myself with it." A man who has 
sought his wife from God, and married her 
for her character, and not merely for her 
figure head, may look for a blessing on his 
choice. They who join their love in God 
above, who pray to love, and love to pray, 
will find that love and joy will never cloy. 

He who respects his wife will find that 
she respects him. With what measure he 
metes it shall be measured to him again, 
good measure, pressed down, and running 
over. He who consults his spouse will 
have a good counsellor. I have heard our 
minister say, " Women's instincts are often 
truer than man's reason;" they jump at a 
ii 



1 62 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

thing at once, and are wise offhand. Say 
what you will of your wife's advice, it's as 
likely as not you will be sorry you did not 
take it. He who speaks ill of women should 
remember the breast he was nursed at, and 
be ashamed of himself. He who ill-treats 
his wife ought to be whipped at the cart 
tail, and would not I like a cut at him ! I 
would just brush a fly or two off, trust me 
for that. So no more at present, as the 
thatcher said when he had cleared every 
dish on the table. 



MEN WITH TWO FACES. 




" Drink or drone will he, as the case may be." 

EVEN bad men praise consistency. 
Thieves like honest men, for they 
are the best to rob. When you know 
where to find a man, he has one good 

(163) 



164 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

point at any rate ; but a fellow who howls 
with the wolves, and bleat swith the sheep, 
gets nobody's good word unless it be the 
devil's. To carry two faces under one hat 
is, however, very common. Many roost 
with the poultry and go shares with Rey- 
nard. Many look as if butter would not 
melt in their mouths, and yet can spit fire 
when it suits their purpose. I read the 
other day an advertisement about reversible 
coats ; the tailor who sells them must be 
making a fortune. Holding with the hare 
and running with the hounds is still in 
fashion. Consistency is about as scarce in 
the world as musk in a dog-kennel. 

You may trust some men as far as you 
can see them, but no further, for new 
company makes them new men. Like 
water, they boil or freeze according to the 
temperature. Some do this because they 
have no principles ; they are of the weather- 
cock persuasion, and turn with the wind. 
You might as well measure the moon for 
a suit of clothes as know what they are. 
They believe in that which pays best. 
They always put up at the Golden Fleece. 
Their mill grinds any grist which you 



MEN WITH TWO FACES. 165 

bring to it if the ready money is forthcoming ; 
and they go with every wind, north, south, 
east, west, north-east, north-west, south- 
east, south-west, nor'-nor'-east, south-west- 
by-south, or any other in all the world. 
Like frogs, they can live on land or 
water, and are not at all particular which 
it is. Like a cat, they always fall on 
their feet, and will stop anywhere if you 
butter their toes. They love their friends 
dearly, but their love lies in the cupboard, 
and if that be bare, like a mouse, their 
love runs off to some other larder. They 
say, " Leave you, dear girl? Never, while 
you have a shilling." How they scuttle 
off if you come to the bad ! Like rats, 
they leave a sinking ship. 

When good cheer is lacking, 
Such friends will be packing. 

Their heart follows the pudding. While 
the pot boils they sit by the fire ; when the 
meal tub is empty they play at turnabout. 
They believe in the winning horse ; they 
will wear anybody's coat who may choose 
to give them one ; they are to be bought by 
the dozen, like mackerel, but he who gives 



166 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

a penny for them wastes his money. Profit 
is their god, and whether they make it out 
of you or your enemy, the money is just 
as sweet to them. Heads or tails are alike 
to them so long as they win. High road 
or back lane, all's the same to them so that 
they can get home with the loaf in the 
basket. They are friends to the goose, but 
they will eat his giblets. So long as the 
water turns their wheel, it is none the 
worse for being muddy ; they would burn 
their mother's coffin if they were short of 
firing, and sell their own father if they 
could turn a penny by the old gentle- 
man's bones. They never lose a chance of 
minding the main chance. 

Others are shifty because they are so 
desperately fond of good fellowship. 
" Hail fellow, well met," is their cry, be it 
traveller or highwayman. They are so 
good-natured that they must needs agree 
with everybody. They are cousins of Mr. 
Anything. Their brains are in other 
people's heads. If they were at Rome 
they would kiss the pope's toe, but when 
they are at home they make themselves 
hoarse with shouting, " No Popery." 



MEN WITH TWO FACES. 167 

They admire the Vicar of Bray, whose 
principle was to be the Vicar of Bray 
whether the Church was Protestant or 
Popish. They are mere time-servers, in 
hopes that the times may serve them. 
They belong to the party which wears the 
yellow colors, not in their button-holes, 
but in the palms of their hands. Butter 
them, and like turnips you may eat them. 
Pull the rope, and like the bells they will 
ring as you choose to make them, funeral 
knell or wedding peal, come to church or 
go to the devil. They have no backbones ; 
you may bend them like willow wands, 
backwards or forwards, whichever way you 
please. Like oysters, anybody may pepper 
them who can open them. Sweet to you 
and sweet to your enemy. They blow hot 
and cold. They try to be Jack-o'-both 
sides, and deserve to be kicked like a foot- 
ball by both parties. 

Some are hypocrites by nature ; slippery 
as eels, and piebald like Squire Smoothey's 
mare. Like a drunken man, they could 
not walk straight if they were to try. 
Like corn-dealers, they are rogues ingrain. 
They wind in and out like a Surrey lane. 



1 68 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

They were born of the breed of St. Judas. 
The double shuffle is their favorite game, 
and honesty their greatest hatred. Honey 
is on their tongue, but gall in their hearts. 
They are mongrel bred, like the gipsy's dog. 
Like a cat's feet they show soft pads, but 
carry sharp claws. If their teeth are not 
rotten their tongues are, and their hearts 
are like dead men's graves. If speaking 
the truth and lying were equally profitable, 
they would naturally prefer to lie, for, like 
dirt to a pig, it would be congenial. They 
fawn, and flatter, and cringe, and scrape, 
for like snails they make their way by 
their slime ; but all the while they hate you 
in their hearts, and only wait for a chance 
to stab you. Beware of those who come 
from the town of Deceit. Mr. Facing-both- 
ways, Mr. Fair-speech, and Mr. Two- 
tongues are neighbors who are best at a 
distance. Though they look one way, as 
boatmen do, they are pulling the other; 
they are false as the devil's promises, and as 
cruel as death and the grave. 

Religious deceivers are the worst of 
vermin, and I fear they are as plentiful as 
rats in an old wheatstack. 



MEN WITH TWO FACES. 169 

They are like a silver pin, 
Fair without but foul within. 

They cover up their black flesh with white 
feathers. Saturday and Sunday make a 
wonderful difference in them. They have the 
fear of the minister a deal more before their 
eyes than the fear of God. Their religion lies 
in imitating the religious; they have none 
of the root of the matter in them. They 
carry Dr. Watts' hymn-book in their 
pocket, and sing a roaring song at the same 
time. Their Sunday coats are the best 
part about them; the nearer you get to 
their hearts the more filth you will find. 
They prate like parrots, but their talk and 
their walk do not agree. Some of them 
are fishing for customers, and a little pious 
talk is a cheap advertisement ; and if the 
seat at the church or the meeting costs 
a trifle, they make it up out of short 
weights. They don't worship God w r hile 
they trade, but they trade on their worship. 
Others of the poorer sort go to church for 
soup, and bread, and coal tickets. They 
love the communion because of the alms' 
money. Some of the dear old Mrs. Good- 
bodies want a blessed almshouse, and so 



170 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

they profess to be so blessed under the 
blessed ministry of their blessed Pastor 
every blessed Sabbath. Charity suits them 
if faith does not; they know which side 
their bread is buttered on. 

Others make a decent show in religion to 
quiet their consciences ; they use it as a 
salve for their wounds — and if they could 
satisfy heaven as easily as they quiet them- 
selves it would be a fine thing for them. 
It has been my lot to meet with some who 
went a long way in profession, as far as I 
could see, for nothing but the love of being 
thought a deal of. They got a little knot of 
friends to believe in their fine talk, and take 
all in for gospel that they liked to say. 
Their opinion was the true measure of a 
preacher's soundness ; they could settle up 
everything by their own know, and they had 
gallons of XXX experience for those who 
liked something hot and strong; but dear, 
dear, if they had but condescended to show 
a little Christian practice as well, how much 
better their lives would have weighed up ! 
These people are like owls, which look to 
be big birds, but they are not, for they are 
all feathers; and they look wonderfully 



MEN WITH TWO FACES. 171 

knowing in the twilight, but when the light 
comes they are regular boobies. 

Hypocrites of all sorts are abominable, 
and he who deals with them will rue it. 
He who tries to cheat the Lord will be 
quite ready to cheat his fellow men. Great 
cry generally means little wool. Many a 
big chimney in which you expect to see 
bacon and hams, when you look up it, has 
nothing to show you but its empty hooks 
and black t soot. Some men's windmills 
are only nut-crackers — their elephants are 
nothing but sucking-pigs. It is not all who 
go to church or meeting that truly pray, 
nor those who sing loudest that praise God 
most, nor those who pull the longest faces 
who are the most in earnest. 

What mean animals hypocrites must be ! 
talk of polecats and weasels, they are 
nothing to them. Better be a dead dog 
than a live hypocrite. Surely when the 
devil sees hypocrites at their little game, it 
must be as good as a play to him ; he tempts 
genuine Christians, but he lets these alone, 
because he is sure of them. He need not 
shoot at lame ducks, his dog can pick them 
up any day. 



172 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK, 

Depend upon it, friends, if a straight line 
will not pay, a crooked one won't. What 
is got by shuffling is very dangerous gain. 
It may give a moment's peace to wear a 
mask, but deception will come home to 
you and bring sorrow with it. Honesty is 
the best policy. If the lion's skin does not 
do, never try the fox's. Be as true as steel. 
Let your face and hands, like the church 
clock, always tell how your inner works are 
going. Better be laughed at as Tom Tell- 
truth than be praised as Crafty Charlie. 
Plain dealing may bring us trouble, but it is 
better than shuffling. At the last the up- 
right will have their reward, but for the 
double-minded to get to heaven is as im- 
possible as for a man to swim across the 
Atlantic with a mill-stone under each arm. 



HINTS AS TO THRIVING. 




" If the cat sits long enough at the hole she will catch the mouse." 
Page 179. 

HARD work is the grand secret of suc- 
cess. Nothing but rags and poverty 
can come of idleness. Elbow grease is the 

(i73) 



174 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

only stuff to make gold with. No sweat no 
sweet. He who would have the crow's 
eggs must climb the tree. Every man must 
build up his own fortune nowadays. Shirt 
sleeves rolled up lead on to best broad- 
cloth ; and he who is not ashamed of the 
apron will soon be able to do without it. 
" Diligence is the mother of good luck," as 
poor Richard says ; but " Idleness is the 
devil's bolster," as John Ploughman says. 

Believe in travelling on step by step ; 
don't expect to be rich in a jump. 

Great greediness to reap 
Helps not the money heap. 

Slow and sure is better than fast and flimsy. 
Perseverance, by its daily gains, enriches a 
man far more than fits and starts of fortunate 
speculation. Little fishes are sweet. Every 
little helps, as the sow said when she 
snapped at a gnat. Every day a thread 
makes a skein in a year. Brick by brick 
houses are built. We should creep before 
we walk, walk before we run, and run before 
we ride. In getting rich the more haste 
the worse speed. Haste trips up its own 
heels. Hasty climbers have sudden falls. 



HINTS AS TO THRIVING. 175 

It is bad beginning business without cap- 
ital. It is hard marketing with empty 
pockets. We want a nest egg, for hens 
will lay where there are eggs already. It is 
true you must bake with the flour you have, 
but if the sack is empty it might be quite as 
well not to set up for a baker. Making 
bricks without straw is easy enough compared 
with making money when you have none 
to start with. You, young gentleman, stay 
as a journeyman a little longer, till you have 
saved a few pounds; fly when your wings 
have got feathers ; but if you try it too soon 
you will be like the young rook that broke 
its neck through trying to fly before it was 
fledged. Every minnow wants to be a 
whale, but it is prudent to be a little fish 
while you have but little water ; when your 
pond becomes the sea, then swell as much 
as you like. Trading without capital is 
like building a house without bricks, mak- 
ing a fire without sticks, burning candles 
without wicks ; it leads men into tricks, and 
lands them in a fix. 

Don't give up a small business till you 
see that a large one will pay you better. 
Even crumbs are bread. 



176 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

Better a poor horse than an empty stall ; 
Better half a loaf than none at all. 

Better a little furniture than an empty house. 
In these hard times he who can sit on a 
stone and feed himself had better not move. 
From bad to worse is poor improvement. 
A crust is hard fare, but none at all is harder. 
Don't jump out of the frying pan into the 
fire. Remember, many men have done well 
in very small shops. A little trade with 
profit is better than a great concern at a loss ; 
a small fire that warms you is better than a 
large fire that burns you. A great deal of 
water can be got from a small pipe if the 
bucket is always there to catch it. Large 
hares may be caught in small woods. A 
sheep may get fat in a small meadow, and 
starve in a great desert. He who under- 
takes too much succeeds but little. Two 
shops are like two stools, a man comes to 
the ground between them. You may burst 
a bag by trying to fill it too full, and ruin 
yourself by grasping at too much. 

In a great river great fish are found, 
But take good heed lest you be drown* d. 



HINTS AS TO THRIVING. 177 

Make as few changes as you can ; trees 
often transplanted bear little fruit. If you 
have difficulties in one place you will have 
them in another; if you move because it is 
damp in the valley, you may find it cold on 
the hill. Where will the ass go that he will 
not have to work ? Where can a cow live 
and not get milked ? Where will you find 
land without stones, or meat without bones ? 
Everywhere on earth men must eat bread 
in the sweat of their faces. To fly from 
trouble men must have eagles' wings. Al- 
teration is not always improvement, as the 
pigeon said when she got out of the net 
and into the pie. There is a proper time 
for changing, and then mind you bestir 
yourself, for a sitting hen gets no barley; 
but do not be forever on the shift, for a roll- 
ing stone gathers no moss. Stick-to-it is 
the conqueror. He who can wait long 
enough will win. This, that, and the other, 
anything, and everything, all put together 
make nothing in the end ; but on one horse 
a man rides home in due season. In one 
place the seed grows, in one nest the bird 
hatches its eggs, in one oven the bread 
bakes, in one river the fish lives. 
12 



178 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

Do not be above your business. He who 
turns up his nose at his work quarrels with 
his bread and butter. He is a poor smith 
who is afraid of his own sparks ; there's 
some discomfort in all trades except chim- 
ney-sweeping. If sailors gave up going to 
sea because of the wet ; if bakers left off 
baking because it is hot work ; if ploughmen 
would not plough because of the cold, and 
tailors would not make our clothes for fear 
of pricking their fingers, what a pass we 
should come to ! Nonsense, my fine fellow, 
there's no shame about any honest calling ; 
don't be afraid of soiling your hands, there's 
plenty of soap to be had. All trades are 
good to good traders. A clever man can 
make money out of dirt. Lucifer matches 
pay well if you sell enough of them. 



Never mind the stink, 
Sweets smells the chink. 



You cannot get honey if you are fright- 
ened at bees, nor sow corn if you are afraid of 
getting mud on your boots. Lackadaisical 
gentlemen had better emigrate to Fool's- 
land, where men get their living by wearing 



HINTS AS TO THRIVING, 179 

shiny boots and lavender gloves. When 
bars of iron melt under the south wind, 
when you can dig the fields with tooth-picks, 
blow ships along with fans, manure the 
crops with lavender water, and grow plum- 
cake in flowerpots, then will be a fine time 
for dandies ; but until the Millennium comes 
we shall all have a deal to put up with, and 
had better bear our present burdens than 
run helter-skelter where we shall find matters 
a deal worse. 

Plod is the word. Every one must row 
with such oars as he has, and as he can't 
choose the wind, he must sail by such as 
God sends him. Patience and attention 
will get on in the long run. If the cat sits 
long enough at the hole she will catch the 
mouse. Always-at-it grows good cabbage 
and lettuce where others grow thistles. I 
know as a ploughman that it is up and down, 
up and down the field that ploughs the 
acres; there's no getting over the ground 
by a mile at a time. He who plods on, the 
clods on, rods on rods will turn of the sods 
while laziness nods. 

Keep your weather eye open. Sleeping 
poultry are carried off by the fox. Who 



180 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

watches not catches not. Fools ask what's 
o'clock, but wise men know their time. 
Grind while the wind blows, or if not do 
not blame providence. God sends every 
bird its food, but he does not throw it into 
the nest : he gives us our daily bread, but 
it is through our own labor. Take time 
by the forelock. Be up early and catch the 
worm. The morning hour carries gold in 
its mouth. He who drives last in the row 
gets all the dust in his eyes ; rise early, and 
you will have a clear start for the day. 

Never try dirty dodges to make money. 
It will never pay you to lick honey off of 
thorns. An honest man will not make a 
dog of himself for the sake of getting a 
bone. It is hard to walk on the devil's ice ; 
it is fine skating, but it ends in a heavy fall, 
and worse. He needs have a long spoon 
who would eat out of the same dish with 
Satan. Never ruin your soul for the sake 
of pelf: it is like drowning yourself in a 
well to get a drink of water. Take nothing 
in hand that may bring you repentance. 
Better walk barefoot than ride in a carriage 
to hell ; better that the bird starve than be 
fattened for the spit. The mouse wins little 



HINTS AS TO THRIVING. 181 

by nibbling the cheese if it gets caught in 
the trap. Clean money or none, mark that ; 
for gain badly got will be an everlasting 
loss. 

A good article, full weight, and a fair 
price bring customers to the shop, but peo- 
ple do not recommend the shop where they 
are cheated. Cheats never thrive ; or if 
they do it must be in London, where they 
catch chance customers enough to live by. 
The long-bow man may hit the mark some- 
times, but a fair shot is the best. A rogue's 
purse is full of holes. He will have blisters 
on his feet who wears stolen shoes. He 
whose fingers are like lime-twigs will find 
other things stick to them besides silver. 
Steal eels and they will turn to snakes. 
The more a fox robs the sooner he will be 
hunted. If a rogue wants to make a good 
trade he had better turn honest. If all you 
aim at is profit, still deal uprightly, for it is 
the most paying game. 

Look most to your spending. No matter 
what comes in, if more goes out you will 
always be poor. The art is not in making 
money, but in keeping it ; little expenses, 
like mice in a barn, when they are many, 



182 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

make great waste. Hair by hair heads get 
bald. Straw by straw the thatch goes off 
the cottage, and drop by drop the rain comes 
into the chamber. A barrel is soon empty 
if the tap leaks but a drop a minute. 
Chickens will be plucked feather by feather 
if the maid keeps at it ; small mites eat the 
cheese ; little birds destroy a great deal of 
wheat. When you mean to save, begin 
with your mouth ; there are many thieves 
down the red lane. The ale jug is a great 
waster. In all other things keep within 
compass. In clothes choose suitable and 
lasting stuff, and not tawdry fineries. To 
be warm is the main thing ; never mind the 
looks. Never stretch your legs further 
than your blankets will reach, or you will 
soon be cold. A fool may make money, but 
it needs a wise man to spend it. Remember 
it is easier to build two chimneys than to 
keep one going. If you give all to back 
and board there is nothing left for the sav- 
ings bank. Fare hard and work hard while 
you are young, and you have a chance of 
rest when you are old. 

Never indulge in extravagance unless 
you want to make a short cut to the work- 



HINTS AS TO THRIVING. 183 

house. Money has wings of its own, and 
if you find it another pair of wings, wonder 
not if it flies fast. 

He that hath it, and will not keep it; 
He that wants it, and will not seek it ; 
He that drinks and is not dry, 
Shall want money as well as I. 

If our poor people could only see the 
amount of money which they melt away in 
drink their hair would stand on end with 
fright. Why, they swallow rivers of beer, 
and seas of porter, and great big lakes of 
spirits and other fire-waters. We should 
all be clothed like gentlemen and live like 
fighting-cocks if what is wasted on fuddle 
could be sensibly used. We should need 
to get up earlier in the morning to spend 
all our money, for we should find ourselves 
suddenly made quite rich, and all that 
through stopping the drip of the tap. At 
any rate, you young people who want to 
get on in the world must make a point of 
dropping your half-pints, and settle in your 
spirits that no spirits shall ever settle you. 
Have your luxuries, if you must have them, 
after you have made your fortunes, but just 
now look after your bread and cheese. 



1 84 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

Pray excuse me for spinning this long 
yarn, for as I pulled it came. My talk 
seems like the Irishman's rope which he 
could not get into the ship because some- 
body had cut the end off. I only want to 
say, do not be greedy, for covetousness is 
always poor: still strive to get on, for pov- 
erty is no virtue, and to rise in the world is 
to a man's credit as well as his comfort. 
Earn all you can, save all you can, and then 
give all you can. Never try to save out of 
God's cause ; such money will canker the 
rest. Giving to God is no loss ; it is put- 
ting your substance into the best bank. 
Giving is true having, as the old grave-stone 
said of the dead man, u What I spent I had, 
what I saved I lost, what I gave I have." 
The pockets of the poor are safe lockers, 
and it is always a good investment to lend 
to the Lord. John Ploughman wishes all 
young beginners long life and prosperity. 

Sufficient of wealth, 

And abundant health, 

Long years of content, 

And when life is spent 

A mansion with God in glory. 



TALL TALK. 




" Gooseberries are to be heard of weighing twice as much as 
possible." 

THE art of stretching is uncommonly 
general nowadays. Gooseberries are 
to be heard of weighing twice as much 
as possible, and unseen showers of frogs 

ri.85) 



186 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

fall regularly when newspapers are slack. 
If a cart goes by, and rattles the lid of an 
old woman's teapot, it is put down as an 
earthquake. Fine imaginations are not at 
all scarce. Certain people are always on 
the look out for wonders, and if they don't 
see them they invent them. They see 
comets every night, and hear some rare tale 
every day. All their molehills are moun- 
tains. All their ducks are swans. They 
have learned the multiplication table, and 
use it freely. If they saw six dogs together 
they would swear they saw a hundred 
hounds; yes, and get as red in the face as 
turkey-cocks if anybody looked a little 
doubtful; and before long they would per- 
suade themselves that they saw ten thou- 
sand lions ; for everything grows with them 
as fast as mushrooms, and as big as Box 
Hill. 

All things around them are wonderful, 
but as for themselves, nobody is fit to clean 
their boots. They are the cream of crea- 
tion. They are as strong as Samson, and 
could pull against John Ploughman's team, 
only they won't try it, for fear of hurting 
the horses. Their wealth is enormous; 



TALL TALK. 187 

they could pay off the National Debt, only 
they have good reasons for not doing so 
just yet. If they keep shop they turn over 
several millions in the year, and only stop 
in business at all for the sake of their 
neighbors. They sell the best goods at 
the lowest prices, in fact, under cost price ; 
and none in the county are fit to hold a 
candle to them; their business is cock of 
the walk and king of the castle. If they 
take a farm it is only for amusement, and to 
show the poor ignorant natives how to do 
it. All their doings are wonders ! Like 
the wild beast show which stopped at our 
village the other day, they are the only, 
original, and unrivalled! But they are 
quite as dead a sell as that fine affair was ; 
all the best of it was outside on the pictures, 
and it's just the same with them. But, 
bless you, how they do draw the long bow ! 
Hear them talk. It is all in capital letters 
and notes of admiration. " Did you ever 
see such A nag ? Why, sir, it would beat 
the wind ! ! That Cow — let me call your 
attention to her, there is not such another 
in the county; just notice the swing of 
her tail ! ! Yes, sir, that boy of mine is 



1 88 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

intelligent, far beyond his years. He's a 
perfect prodigy! Like his father, did you 
say? Very kind remark, sir, but there's a 
good deal of truth in it : though I say it, 
a man must get up early to beat me! Pm 
one too many for most people ! Just look 
over the farm, sir. Was there ever such a 
field of turnips? The fly on the leaf? 
Not a bit, sir ; that arises from the peculiar 
sort ; it's A very rare turnip, with venti- 
lated leaves pricked through by nature to 
let the air in and out ! Too many moles 
did you say? Ah! thereby hangs a tale. 
Do you know our moles are a great sin- 
gularity? they throw up bigger hills than 
any others in England, and are supposed to 
be of a fine old British stock now al- 
most lost. Did you notice that tremen- 
dous thistle ? Is it not a rare specimen ? 
enough to make a Scotchman die of joy. 
That shows the extraordinary richness of 
the soil ; and, indeed, sir, our last year's 
crop of wheat was so amazingly heavy, I 
thought we should never get it home; it 
nearly broke the wagons ; we had half the 
county here to see it threshed, and the old- 
est men in the parish said they never heard 



TALL TALK. 189 

tell of the like. It is a mercy that steam 

IS INVENTED, OR WE NEVER COULD HAVE 
THRESHED IT BY HAND." 

When a man gets into this style of talk, 
it is no matter what he is hammering at, he 
speaks of it as the finest, greatest, and most 
marvellous in the kingdom, or else the most 
awful, horrible, and dreadful in the world. 
His boots would not fit Goliath, but his 
tongue is much too big for the giant's 
mouth. He paints with a broom. He sug- 
ars his dumplings with a spade, and lays 
on his butter with a trowel. His horse, his 
dog, his gun, his wife, his child, his singing, 
his planning, are all nonsuches, he is the 
forehorse of the parish, he lives at Number 
One, and it would be hard to find a man fit 
to be number two to him. The water out 
of his well is stronger than wine ; it rains 
pea-soup into his water butt; his currant 
bushes grow grapes ; you might live in- 
side one of his pumpkins ; and his flowers — 
well, he's heard that the Queen herself 
had the fellow plant to that geranium, only 
his was rather the better ! The greatest won- 
der is that men of this kidney don't see that 
everybody is laughing at them ; they must 



190 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

have bragged themselves blind. Everybody 
sees the bottom of their dish, and yet they 
go on calling in an ocean, as if they had 
none but flat fish to deal with. 

I've known men who open their mouths 
like barn doors in boasting what they 
would do if they were in somebody else's 
shoes. If they were in Parliament they 
would abolish all taxes, turn workhouses 
into palaces, make the pumps run with beer, 
and set the Thames on fire ; but all this de- 
pends on an if, and that if is a sort of five- 
barred gate which they have never got 
over. If the sky falls we shall catch larks. 
If Jack Brag does but get the reins he'll 
make the horses fly up to the moon. If is 
a fine word ; when a man jumps on its back 
it will carry him into worlds which were 
never created, and make him see miracles 
which were never wrought. With an if 
you may put all London into a quart 
pot. 

" If all the seas were one sea, 
What a great sea that would be ! 
And if all the trees were one tree, 
What a great tree that would be ! 
And if all the axes were one axe, 
What a great axe that would be ! 



I 



TALL TALK. 191 

And if all the men were one man, 

What a great man he would be ! 

And if the great man took the great axe, 

And cut down the great tree, 

And let it fall into the great sea, 

What a splish splash that would be ! " 



" What nonsense !" says some one ; so John 
Ploughman thinks, and therefore he puts it 
in as a specimen of the stupidity which tall 
talkers are so fond of. This is not half so 
silly as nine out of ten of their mighty 
nothings. 

What some of these fellows have done ! 
Now, would you believe it ? (I say, " No, 
I would not/') They made their own for- 
tunes in no time, and made other people's 
too. Their advice has been the means of 
filling many a bag with gold. What they 
said at a meeting fastened the people to 
their seats like cobbler's wax. They were 
in a quarrel, and when all their party were 
nearly beaten, they settled off the opposi- 
tion side at once with first-rate wit and wis- 
dom — King Solomon was a fool to them. 
As to religion, they were the first to set it 
up in the parish, and by their wonderful 
exertions everything was set a going. They 



192 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

laid the golden egg. People are not grate- 
ful, or they would almost worship them: 
it's shameful to see how they have been 
neglected, and even turned off, of late by 
the very people whom they have been the 
making of. While they had a finger in the 
pie all went well at the meeting, but now 
they have left they say there's a screw 
loose, and they who live longest will see 
most. When they are in a modest humor 
they borrow words from David, and say, 
" The earth is dissolved, I bear up the pil- 
lars of it." It is thought that their death 
would fill the world with bones. If they 
remove their custom people are expected to 
shut up their shops directly, and it is only 
their impudence that makes them hope to 
get a living after such customers are gone. 
When they feel a little natural pride at their 
great doings, then it's fine to hear them go 
ahead : talk of blowing your own trumpet, 
they have a whole band of music, big drum 
and all, and keep all the instruments going 
first-rate to their own praise and glory. 

I'd rather plough all day and be on the 
road with the wagon all night when it 
freezes your eyelashes off than listen to 



TALL TALK. 193 

these great talkers ; they make me as sick as 
a cat. I'd sooner go without eating till I 
was as lean as a wash-leather than eat the 
best turkey that ever came on the table, and 
be dinned all the while with their awful 
jaw. They talk on such a mighty big 
scale, and magnify everything so thunder- 
ingly, that you cannot believe them when 
they accidentally slip in a word or two of 
truth ; and so you are apt to think that 
even their cheese is chalk. They are great 
liars, but they are hardly conscious of it; 
they have talked themselves into believing 
their own bombast. The frog thought her- 
self equal to the cow, and then began to 
blow herself out to make it true; they 
swell like her and they will burst like her 
if they don't mind. 

Everybody who knows these big talkers 
should take warning from them : 

" Said I to myself, here's a lesson for me, 
This man is a picture of what I might be." 

We must try to state the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth. If we 
begin calling eleven inches a foot we shall 
13 



194 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

go on till we call one inch four-and-twenty. 
If we call a heifer a cow, we may one day 
call a dormouse a bullock. Once go in for 
exaggeration, and you may as well be hung 
for a sheep as a lamb ; you have left the 
road of truth, and there is no telling where 
the crooked lane may lead you to. He 
who tells little lies will soon think nothing 
of great ones, for the principle is the same. 
Where there is a mouse-hole there will soon 
be a rat-hole, and if the kitten comes the 
cat will follow. It seldom rains but it pours ; 
a little untruth leads on to a perfect shower 
of lying. 

Self-praise is no recommendation. A 
man's praise smells sweet when it comes 
out of other men's mouths, but in his own 
it stinks. Grow your own cherries, but 
don't sing your own praises. 

Boasters are never worth a button with 
the shank off. Long tongue, short hand. 
Great talkers, little doers. Dogs that bark 
much run away when it is time to bite. 
The leanest pig squeaks most. It is not 
the hen which cackles most that lays most 
eggs. Saying and doing are two different 
things. It is the barren cow that bellows. 



TALL TALK, 195 

There may be great noise of threshing 
where there is no wheat. Great boast, little 
roast. Much froth, little beer. Drums 
sound loud because there is nothing in 
them. Good men know themselves too 
well to chant their own praises. Barges 
without cargoes float high on the canal, but 
the fuller they are the lower they sink. 
Good cheese sells itself without puffery; 
good wine needs no bush ; and when men 
are really excellent, people find it out with- 
out telling. Bounce is the sign of folly. 
Loud braying reveals an ass. If a man is 
ignorant and holds his tongue, no one will 
despise him ; but if he rattles on with an 
empty pate, and a tongue that brags like 
forty, he will write out his own name in 
capital letters, and they will be these — 
F, O, O, L. 

As "by the ears the ass is known " — 
A truth as sure as parsons preach, 

"The man," as proverbs long have shown, 
" Is seen most plainly through his speech. " 




" I would not choose to be gossipped to death by wild washerwomen." — Page 199 

(196) 



THINGS I WOULD NOT CHOOSE. 

IF it were all the same to other folks and 
I might have things managed exactly 
as I liked, I should not choose to have my 
homely book pulled to pieces by fellows 
who have not the honesty to read it, but 
make up their minds beforehand, as Simple 
Simon did when they put him on the jury. 
However, as the rhinoceros said, I have not 
a very thin skin : and if it amuses others 
to find fault with me, they are as welcome 
as they are free. The anvil is not afraid 
of the hammer. They tell me those London 
editors cut a page open, and then smell the 
knife, and fall to praising the book up to 
the skies, or abusing it without mercy, 
according as the maggot bites them, or 
according to what they have had for din- 
ner. John Ploughman hopes the publisher 
will turn down this leaf when he sends his 
book to the papers, and he hopes the fol- 
lowing word to the wise will be enough : 
7" hope my pears won't fall into pigs' mouths. 
I should not choose, if I might have my 
own way, to see a dozen of these pages 
brought home wrapped round the butter 
the next time we send to the shop ; but it 

(i97) 



198 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

is not at all unlikely to happen, so I must 
put up with it, as Tom Higgs did when he 
had only turkey and plum pudding for 
dinner. 

I should not choose to plough with two 
old horses spavined and broken-winded, 
and altogether past work : pity the poor 
horses and pity the poor ploughman, and 
no pity at all for the farmer who keeps 
such wretched cattle. When I see a man 
whipping and slashing a poor brute of a 
horse, I want to kick him, but at the same 
time I feel glad that Violet and Dapper go 
well enough with the sound of the whip 
without needing to be paid like lawyers for 
all they do. A man who knocks a horse 
about ought to be put in harness himself, 
and be driven about by a butcher. There's 
a deal to be done with animals with kind- 
ness, and nothing with cruelty. He who is 
unmerciful to his beast is worse than a 
beast himself. 

I should not choose to be a bob-tailed 
cow in summer-time, nor a servant with a 
score of masters, nor a minister with half-a- 
dozen ignorant tyrants for deacons, nor a 
man who lives with his mother-in-law. 



THINGS I WOULD NOT CHOOSE. 199 

Nor should I like to try the truth of the 
old saying — 

" Two cats and one mouse, 
Two women in one house, 
Two dogs to one bone, 
Will not agree long." 

I had rather not be a dog with a tin kettle 
tied to his tail, nor a worm on a fisherman's 
hook, nor an eel being skinned alive, nor a 
husband with a vixen for his wife. I 
would much rather not fall into the jaws of 
a crocodile or the hands of a lawyer; the 
only suit that lasts too long is a lawsuit, and 
that would not suit me at all. I would 
not choose to be gossipped to death by wild 
washerwomen, or pestered by a travelling 
bookseller wanting me to take in sixpenny 
numbers of a book that will run on for ever 
like old Jimmy's debts. 

I should be very hard up before I should 
choose to sleep with pigs, or live in some 
people's dirty houses. I would not choose 
to own half the cottages poor laborers 
are made to live in ; no farmer would be 
so mean as to keep his horses in them; 
and they are not good enough for dog ken- 



200 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

nels. Think of father, and mother, and a 
grown-up son, and two daughters sleeping 
in the same room ! It is a burning shame, 
and a crying sin on the part of those who 
drive people to such shifts. It won't bear 
to be thought of, and yet it is not at all 
uncommon. Squires and landlords, how 
would you like it ? If any man defends 
such a system, half-an-hour's hanging would 
be a good thing for him. 

To be servant to a miser, to work for a 
wasp, to be catspaw to a monkey, or toady 
to a lord without brains, I would not 
choose ; nor to go to the workhouse, nor 
apply for parish relief; I'd sooner try 
Grantham gruel, nine grits and a gallon of 
water. I would not go round with the 
hat for my own pocket, nor borrow money, 
nor be a loafer, nor live like a toad under a 
harrow; no, not for all that ever thawed 
out of the cold hand of charity. 

Bad off as I am, I would not choose to 
change, unless I could hope to better my- 
self. Who would go under the spout to 
get out of the rain ? What's the use of 
travelling to the other end of the world to 
be worse off than you are ? Old England 



THINGS I WOULD NOT CHOOSE. 201 

for me, and Botany Bay for those who like 
to transport themselves. 

I would not choose to drive a pig, nor to 
manage a jibbing nag, nor try to persuade 
a man with a wooden head ; nor should I 
like to be a schoolmaster with unruly boys, 
nor a bull baited by dogs, nor a hen who 
has hatched ducks. Worse off still is a 
preacher to drowsy hearers ; he hunts with 
dead dogs and drives wooden horses. As 
well hold a service for sleeping swine as 
sleeping men. 

I would not buy a horse of a horsedealer 
if I could help it, for the two or three honest 
ones nobody ever heard of. A very honest 
horsedealer will never cheat you if you 
don't let him ; an ordinary one will draw 
your eye-tooth while your mouth is shut. 
Horses are almost as hard to judge of as 
men's hearts ; the oldest hands are taken 
in. What with bone-spavin, ringbone and 
splints ; grease, crown-scab and rat -tail, 
wind-galls and cankers, colic and jaundice, 
sandcracks and founders, mallenders and 
sallenders, there is hardly a sound horse in 
the world. It's a bad thing to change 
horses at all ; if you have a good one keep 



202 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

it, for you will not get a better; if you 
have a bad one keep it, for ten to one you 
will buy a worse. 

I would not choose to make myself a 
door-mat nor a poodle, nor a fellow who 
will eat dirt in order to curry favor with 
great folks. Let who will tell lies to please 
others, I'd rather have truth on my side, if 
I go barefoot. Independence and a clear 
conscience are better with cold cabbage than 
slavery and sin with roast beef. 

I would not like to keep a toll-gate at 
the top of a long hill, nor to be a tax- 
collector, nor the summoning officer, nor a 
general nuisance, nor a poor postman with 
half enough to live on and twice as much to 
do as he ought ; better be a gipsy's horse, 
and live on the common, with no hay and 
no oats, but plenty of oak cudgel. 

I would not choose to be plucked like a 
goose, nor to be shareholder in a company ; 
nor to be fried alive, nor to be at the mercy 
of a Roman Catholic priest. 

I would not stand as godfather to any- 
body's child, to promise that the little sin- 
ner shall keep God's holy commandments 
and walk in the same all the days of his life ; 



THINGS I WOULD NOT CHOOSE. 203 

of the two, I would sooner promise to put 
the moon into my coat sleeve and bring it 
out again at the leg of my trousers, or vow 
that the little dear shall have red hair and 
a snub nose. Neither would I choose to 
have lies told over my baby in the hope of 
getting on the parson's blind side when 
the blankets were given away at Christmas. 
I should not choose to go where I 
should be afraid to die, nor could I bear 
to live without a good hope for hereafter. 
I would not choose to sit on a barrel of 
gunpowder and smoke a pipe, but that is 
what those do who are thoughtless about 
their souls while life is so uncertain. 
Neither would I choose my lot on earth, 
but leave it with God to choose for me. 
I might pick and choose and take the 
worst, but his choice is always best. 



TRY. 




"We shall get through it now,' said Jack to Harry, as they fin- 
ished up the pudding." — Page 205. 

OF all the pretty little songs I have ever 
heard my youngsters sing, that is one 
of the best which winds up — 



" If at first you don't succeed, 
Try, try, try again." 



(204) 



TR K 205 

I. recommend it to grown-up people who 
are down in the mouth, and fancy that the 
best thing they can do is to give up. No- 
body knows what he can do till he tries. 
" We shall get through it now," said Jack 
to Harry as they finished up the pudding. 
Everything new is hard work, but a little 
" TRY " ointment rubbed on the hand and 
worked into the heart makes all things 
easy. 

Can't do it sticks in the mud, but Try 
soon drags the wagon out of the rut. The 
fox said Try, and he got away from the 
hounds when they almost snapped at him. 
The bees said Try, and turned flowers 
into honey. The squirrel said Try, and 
up he went to the top of the beech tree. 
The snowdrop said Try, and bloomed in the 
cold snows of winter. The sun said Try, 
and the spring soon threw Jack Frost out 
of the saddle. The young lark said Try, 
and he found that his new wings took him 
over hedges and ditches, and up where his 
father was singing. The ox said Try, and 
ploughed the field from end to end. No 
hill too steep for Try to climb, no clay too 
stiff for Try to plough, no field too wet for 



206 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

Try to drain, no hole too big for Try to 
mend. 

" By little strokes 
Men fell great oaks." 

By a spadeful at a time the navvies 
digged the cutting, cut a big hole through 
the hill, and heaped up the embankment. 

" The stone is hard, and the drop is small, 
But a hole is made by the constant fall." 

What man has done man can do, and what 
has never been may be. Ploughmen have 
got to be gentlemen, cobblers have turned 
their lapstones into gold, and tailors have 
sprouted into Members of Parliament. Tuck 
up your shirt-sleeves, young Hopeful, and 
go at it. Where there's a will there's a 
way. The sun shines for all the world. Be- 
lieve in God, and stick to hard work, and 
see if the mountains are not removed. Faint 
heart never won fair lady. Cheer, boys, 
cheer, God helps those who help themselves. 
Never mind luck, that's what the fool had 
when he killed himself with eating suet 
pudding ; the best luck in all the world is 
made up of joint oil and sticking plaster. 



TRY. 207 

Don't wait for helpers. Try those two 
old friends, your strong arms. Self's the 
man. If the fox want's poultry for his cubs 
he must carry the chickens home himself. 
None of her friends can help the hare; she 
must run for herself, or the greyhounds will 
have her. Every man must carry his own 
sack to the mill. You must put your own 
shoulder to the wheel and keep it there, for 
there's plenty of ruts in the road. If you 
wait till all the ways are paved, you will 
have light shining between your ribs. If 
you sit still till great men take you on their 
backs, you will grow to your seat. Your 
own legs are better than stilts ; don't look 
to others, but trust in God and keep your 
powder dry. 

Don't be whining about not having a fair 
start. Throw a sensible man out of a win- 
dow, he'll fall on his legs and ask the near- 
est way to his work. The more you have 
to begin with the less you will have at the 
end. Money you earn yourself is much 
brighter and sweeter than any you get out 
of dead men's bags. A scant breakfast in 
the morning of life whets the appetite for a 
feast later in the day. He who has tasted 



208 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

a sour apple will have the more relish for a 
sweet one ; your present want will make 
future prosperity all the sweeter. Eighteen- 
pence has set up many a pedlar in business, 
and he has turned it over till he has kept 
his carriage. 

As for the place you are cast in, don't 
find fault with that. You need not be a 
horse because you were born in a stable. 
If a bull tossed a man of mettle sky high he 
would drop down into a good place. A 
hard-working young man, with his wits 
about him, will make money where others 
do nothing but lose it. 

Who loves his work and knows to spare, 
May live and flourish anywhere. 

As to a little trouble, who* expects to find 
cherries without stones, or roses without 
thorns? Who would win must learn to 
bear. Idleness lies in bed sick of the mulli- 
grubs, where industry finds health and 
wealth. The dog in the kennel barks at 
the fleas ; the hunting dog does not even 
know they are there. Laziness waits till 
the river is dry and never gets to market ; 
"Try "swims it and makes all the trade. 



TR Y. 209 

Can't do it couldn't eat the bread and but- 
ter which was cut for him, but Try made 
meat out of mushrooms. 

Everybody who does not get on lays it 
all on competition. When the wine was 
stolen they said it was the rats ; it's very 
convenient to have a horse to put the sad- 
dle on. A mouse may find a hole, be the 
room even so full of cats. Good workmen 
are always wanted. There's a penny to be 
turned at the worst booth in the fair. No 
barber ever shaves so close but another bar- 
ber will find something left. Nothing is so 
good but what it might be better ; and he 
who^sells the best wins the trade. We were 
all going to the workhouse because of the 
new machines, so the prophets down at the 
taproom were always telling us ; but, in- 
stead of it, all these threshing, and reaping, 
and hay-making machines have helped to 
make those men better off who had sense 
enough to work them. If a man has not 
a soul above clodhopping he may expect to 
keep poor, but if he opens his sense-box, 
and picks up here a little and there a little, 
even Johnny Raw may yet improve. " Times 
are bad," they say; yes, and if you go gap- 
14 



210 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

ing about and send your wits wool gather- 
ing, times always will be bad. 

Many don't get on because they have not 
the pluck to begin in right earnest. The 
first pound laid by is the difficulty. The 
first blow is half the battle. Over with that 
beer jug, up with the "Try " flag, then out 
to your work and away to the savings bank 
with the savings, and you will be a man yet. 
Poor men will always be poor if they think 
they must be. But there's a way up out 
of the lowest poverty if a man looks after it 
early, before he has a wife and half-a-dozen 
children : after that he carries too much 
weight for racing, and most commonly he 
must be content if he finds bread for the 
hungry mouths and clothes for the little 
backs. Yet, I don't know; some hens 
scratch all the better for having a great 
swarm of chicks. To young men the road 
up the hill may be hard, but at any rate it 
is open, and they who set stout heart against 
a stiff hill shall climb it yet. What was hard 
to bear will be sweet to remember. If young 
men would deny themselves, work hard, 
live hard, and save in their early days, they 
need not keep their noses to the grindstone 



TRY. 211 

all their lives, as many do. Let them be 
teetotalers for economy's sake ; water is the 
strongest drink, it drives mills. It's the 
drink of lions and horses, and Samson 
never drank anything else. The beer money 
would soon build a house. 

If you want to do good in the world, the 
little word " Try " comes in again. There 
are plenty of ways of serving God, and some 
that will fit you exactly as a key fits a lock. 
Don't hold back because you cannot preach 
in St. Paul's ; be content to talk to one or 
two in a cottage ; very good wheat grows 
in little fields. You may cook in small pots 
as well as in big ones. Little pigeons can 
carry great messages. Even a little dog can 
bark at a thief, and wake up the master and 
save the house. A spark is fire. A sen- 
tence of truth has heaven in it. Do what 
you do right thoroughly, pray over it 
heartily, and leave the result to God. 

Alas ! advice is thrown away on many, 
like good seed on a bare rock. Teach a 
cow for seven years, but she will never learn 
to sing the Old Hundredth. Of some it 
seems true that when they were born Solo- 
mon went by the door, but would not look 



212 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

in. Their coat of arms is a fool's cap on a 
donkey's head. They sleep when it is time 
to plough, and weep when harvest comes. 
They eat all the parsnips for supper, and 
wonder they have none left for breakfast. 
Our working people are shamefully un- 
thrifty, and so old England swarms with 
poor. If what goes into the mash-tub 
went into the kneading-trough, families 
would be better fed and better taught. 
If what is spent in waste were only saved 
against a rainy day, work houses would 
never be built. 

Once let every man say Try> 
Very few on straw would lie, 
Fewer still of want would die ; 
Pans would all have fish to fry; 
Pigs would fill the poor man's sty; 
Want would cease and need would fly; 
Wives and children cease to cry; 
Poor rates would not swell so high ; 
Things wouldn't go so much awry — 
You'd be glad, and so would I. 



MONUMENTS. 




" Some men are nothing better than walking beer barrels while they 
live." — Page 214. 

EVERY man should leave a monument 
behind him in the recollection of his 
own life by his neighbors. There must be 
something very much amiss about a man 

(213) 



214 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

who is not missed when he dies. A good 
character is the best tombstone. Those 
who loved you, and were helped by you, 
will remember you when forget-me-nots are 
withered. Carve your name on hearts, and 
not on marble. So live towards others that 
they will keep your memory green when 
the grass grows on your grave. Let us 
hope there will be something better to be 
said about us than of the man whose epitaph 
is — 

"Here lies a man who did no good, 
And if he'd lived he never would; 
Where he's gone, and how he fares, 
Nobody knows and nobody cares." 

May our friends never remember us as great 
gormandizers of meat and drink, like the 
glutton over whose grave is written — 

" Gentle reader, gentle reader, 
Look on the spot where I do lie, 
I always was a very good feeder, 
But now the worms do feed on I." 

As much as that might be said of a prize 
pig, or a fat bullock, if it died of disease. 
Some men are nothing better than walking 
beer barrels while they live ; when death 



MONUMENTS. 215 

staves in the cask, they deserve to rot out 
of notice. 

However, a plain-speaking tombstone is 
better than downright lying. To put flattery 
on a grave is like pouring melted butter 
down a stone sink. What queer tastes 
those must have who puff off the departed, 
as if they wanted to blow the trumpet of 
the dead before the last angel makes his 
appearance ! Here's an apple out of their 
basket — 

" Here lies the body of Martha Gwyn, 
Who was so very pure within ; 
She crack' d the outer shell of sin, 
And hatch' d herself a cherubim.' ' 

Where do they bury the bad people? 
Right and left in our churchyard, they seem 
all to have been the best of folks, a regular 
nest of saints ; and some of them so precious 
good, it is no wonder they died — they were 
too fine to live in such a wicked world as 
this. Better give bread to the poor than 
stones to the dead. Better kind words to 
the living than fine speeches over the grave. 
Some of the fulsome stuff on monuments is 
enough to make a dead man blush. 



216 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

What heaps of marble are stuck over 
many big people's tombs ! Half enough to 
build a house with ! What a lift they will 
have at the resurrection ! It makes me feel 
as if I could not get my breath to think of 
all those stones being heaped on my bones ; 
not that there's any fear of it. Let the 
earth which I have turned over so often lie 
light upon my corpse when it is turned over 
me. Let John Ploughman be buried some- 
where under the boughs of a spreading 
beech, with a green grass mound above 
him, out of which primroses and daisies 
peep in their season : a quiet shady spot 
where the leaves fall, and the robins play, 
and the dewdrops gleam in the sunshine. 
Let the wind blow fresh and free over my 
grave, and if there must be a line about me, 
let it be— 

HERE LIES THE BODY OF 

JOHN PLOUGHMAN, 

waiting for the appearing of his 

Lord and Saviour, 

Jesus Christ. 

IVe often heard tell of patience on a monu- 



MONUMENTS. 217 

ment, but I have never seen it sitting there 
when I have gone through churchyards; 
I have a good many times seen stupidity on 
a monument, and I have wondered why the 
parson, or the churchwarden, or the beadle, 
or whoever else has the ruling of things, 
let people cut such rubbish on the stones. 
Why, a Glos'tershire man told me that at 
Dymock graveyard there's a writing like 
this— 



" Too sweetur babes you nare did see 
Than God amity gave to wee ; 
But they wur ortaken wee agur fits, 
And hear they lys has dead as nits." 



IVe read pretty near enough silly things 
myself in our Surrey burying-grounds to 
fill a book. Better leave the grave alone 
than set up a monument to your own igno- 
rance. 

Of all places for jokes and fun the queerest 
are tombstones, yet many a time gravestones 
have had such oddities carved upon them 
that one is led to think, the nearer the church 
the further from common decency. This is 
a cruel verse, but I dare say a true one : 



218 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

" Here lies, return' d to clay, 
Miss Arabella Young, 
Who on the first of May 
Began to hold her tongue." 

This is not much better : 



" John Adams lies here, of the parish Southwell, 
A carrier who carried his can to his mouth well ; 
He carried so much, and he carried so fast, 
He could carry no more, so was carried at last; 
For the liquor he drunk being too much for one, 
He could not carry off, so he's now carri-on" 

Why could not these people poke their fun 
somewhere else ? A man's wit must be 
nearly dead when he can find no place for it 
but the grave. The body of the raggedest 
beggar is too sacred a thing to crack jokes 
upon. What a queer fish must Roger 
Martin have been, who lived in Walworth, 
and put on his wife's tomb — 

" Here lies the wife of Roger Martin, 
She was a good wife to Roger — that's sartain." 

And whoever was the foolish creature at 
Ockham, one of the prettiest spots in these 
parts, who wrote these outrageous lines ? 



MONUMENTS. 219 

u The Lord saw good, I was topping off wood, 
And down fell from the tree ; 
I met with a check, and I broke my blessed neck, 
And so death topped off me/' 

There, that's enough, and quite as good 
as a feast. Here's proof positive that some 
fools are left alive to write on the monu- 
ments of those who are buried. Well may 
there be ghosts about. No wonder the 
sleepers get out of bed when they are so 
badly tucked in. I say let us have a law T to 
let nobody put nonsense over the dead un- 
less he likes to take out a certificate to be 
an ass, just like the license to shoot patridges 
and pheasants. At the same time, let all 
puffery be saved for drapers' shops and 
quack doctors, and none be allowed at the 
grave. I say as our minister does — 



" Let no proud stone with sculptur'd virtues rise, 
To mark the spot wherein a sinner lies, 
Or if some boast must deck the sinner's grave, 
Boast of His love who died lost man to save." 



One more Surrey rhyme, and John 
Ploughman leaves the churchyard to go 
about his work, and turn up other sods. 



220 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

It is in St. Saviour's, Southwark, and is, I 
think, a rare good one. 

" Like to the damask rose you see, 
Or like the blossom on the tree, 
Or like the dainty flow'r of May, 
Or like the morning of the day, 
Or like the sun, or like the shade, 
Or like the gourd which Jonah had ; 
Even so is man, whose thread is spun, 
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done : 
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, 
The flower fades, the morning hasteth, 
The sun sets, the shadow flies, 
The gourd consumes, and man he dies." 



VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 




"The fox admires the cheese, not the raven." — Page 229. 

I HAVE heard tell of a man who did 
not know a great A from a bull's foot, 
and I know a good many who certainly 
could not tell what great A or little A 

(221) 



222 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

either may mean ; but some of these peo- 
ple are not the most ignorant in the world 
for all that. For instance, they know a 
cow's head from its tail, and one of the 
election gentlemen said lately that the can- 
didate from London did not know that. 
They know that turnips don't grow on trees, 
and they can tell a mangold-wurtzel from a 
beet root, and a rabbit from a hare, and 
there are fine folk who play on pianos who 
hardly know as much as that. If they can- 
not read they can plough, and mow, and 
reap, and sow, and bring up seven children 
on ten shillings a-week, and yet pay their 
w r ay ; and there's a sight of people who are 
much too ignorant to do that. Ignorance 
of spelling books is very bad, but ignorance 
of hard work is worse. Wisdom does not 
always speak Latin. People laugh at 
smock-frocks, and indeed they are about as 
ugly garments as could well be contrived, 
but some who wear them are not half such 
fools as people take them for. If no igno- 
rant people ate bread but those who wear 
hobnail shoes, corn would be a fine deal 
cheaper. Wisdom in a poor man is like a 
diamond set in lead, for none but good 



VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 223 

judges can discover its value. Wisdom 
walks often in patched clothes, and then 
folks do not admire her; but I say, never 
mind the coat, give me the man : shells are 
nothing, the kernel is everything. You 
need not go to Pirbright to find ignoram- 
uses, there are heaps of them near St. Paul's. 
I would have everybody able to read, 
and write, and cipher; indeed, I don't think 
a man can know too much ; but mark you, 
the knowing of these things is not educa- 
tion ; and there are millions of your read- 
ing and writing people who are as ignorant 
as neighbor Norton's calf, that did not 
know its own mother. This is as plain as the 
nose on your face, if you only think a little. 
To know how to read and write is like 
having tools to work, but if you don't use 
these tools, and your eyes, and your ears 
too, you will be none the better off. Every- 
body should know what most concerns him 
and makes him most useful. If cats can 
catch mice and hens can lay eggs, they 
know the things which most suits what they 
w r ere made for. It is little use for a horse 
to know how to fly, it will do well enough 
if it can trot. A man on a farm ought to 



224 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

learn all that belongs to farming, a black- 
smith should study a horse's foot, a dairy- 
maid should be well up in skimming the 
milk and making the butter, and a laborer's 
wife should be a good scholar in the 
sciences of boiling and baking, washing 
and mending; and John Ploughman ven- 
tures to say that those men and women 
who have not learned the duties of their 
callings are very ignorant people, even if 
they can tell the Greek name for a croco- 
dile, or write a poem on a black beetle. It 
is too often very true — 



* Jack has been to school 
To learn to be a fool." 



When a man falls into the water, to know 
how to swim will be of more use to him 
than all his mathematics, and yet how very 
few boys learn swimming ! Girls are taught 
dancing and French when stitching and 
English would be a hundred per cent, more 
use to them. When men have to earn 
their livings, in these hard times, a good 
trade and industrious habits will serve their 
turn a world better than all the classics in 



VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 225 

Cambridge and Oxford : but who nowadays 
advocates practical training at our schools ? 
Schoolmasters would go into fits if they 
were asked to teach poor people's boys to 
hoe potatoes and plant cauliflowers, and 
yet school boards would be doing a power 
of good if they did something of the sort. 
If you want a dog to be a pointer or a set- 
ter, you train him accordingly : why ever 
don't they do the same with men ? It 
ought to be " every man for his business, 
and every man master of his business." Let 
Jack and Tom learn geography by all 
means, but don't forget to teach them how 
to black their own boots, and put a button 
onto their own trousers ; and as for Jane and 
Sally, let them sing and play the music if 
they like, but not till they can darn a stock- 
ing and make a shirt. When they mend 
up that Education Act I hope they will put 
in a clause to teach children practical com- 
mon-sense home duties as well as the three 
R's. But there, what's the use of talking 
this way, for if children are to learn com- 
mon sense where are we to get the teachers ? 
Very few people have any of it to spare, 
and those who have are never likely to take 
*5 



226 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

to school keeping. Lots of girls learn 
nothing except the folderols which I think 
they call " accomplishments." There's 
poor Gent with six girls, and about fifty 
pounds a-year to keep his family on, and 
yet not one of them can do a hand's turn, 
because their mother would go into fits lest 
Miss Sophia Elfrida should have chapped 
hands through washing the family linen, or 
lest Alexandra Theodora should spoil her 
complexion in picking a few gooseberries 
for a pudding. It's enough to make a cat 
laugh to hear the poor things talk about 
fashion and etiquette, when they are not 
half as well off as the higgler's daughters 
down the lane, who earn their own living, 
and are laying money by against the time 
when some young farmer will pick them up. 
Trust me, he who marries these highty- 
tighty young ladies will have as bad a bar- 
gain as if he married a wax doll. How the 
fat would be in the fire if Mrs. Gent heard 
me say it, but I do say it for all that, — she 
and her girls are ignorant, very ignorant, be- 
cause they do not know what would be of 
most service to them. 
Every spratciowadays calls itself a herring : 



VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 227 

every donkey thinks itself fit to be one of 
the queen's horses ; every candle reckons 
itself the sun. But when a man with his 
best coat on, and a paper collar, a glass in 
his eye, a brass chain on his waistcoat, a 
cane in his hand, and emptiness in his head, 
fancies that people cannot see through his 
swaggers and brags, he must be ignorant, 
very ignorant, for he does not know him- 
self. Flats, dressed up to the top of the 
fashion, think themselves somebodies, but 
nobody else does. Dancing masters and 
tailors may rig up a fop, but they cannot 
make a nothing into a man. You may color a 
millstone as much as you like, but you can- 
not improve it into a cheese. 

Round our part we have a lot of poets, 
at least a set of very ignorant people who 
think they are; and these folks worry me 
more than a little because I have written a 
book, and therefore ought to listen to their 
rigmaroles. Nonsense is nonsense whether 
it rhymes or not, just as bad halfpennies 
are good for nothing whether they jingle or 
lie quiet. " Here, John," said a man to me, 
" I want to read you some of my verses." 
" No, thank you," said I, " I don't feel in a 



228 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

poetical frame of mind to-day." Mark you, 
I shan't feel a bit more so to-morrow. 
What right has that fellow to shoot his 
rubbish at my door ? I have enough of my 
own. I don't intend to have my ear stuffed 
up with cobbler's wax or cobbled verses. 
I had a double dose the other morning from 
two of our great village poets, and I must 
confess it was rather better than most of the 
rhymes that I meet with in books. Chub- 
bins said, 

" It is a sin to steal a pin," 

And then Padley topped it up by adding, 

" It is a greater to steal a tater." 

Now, there's rhyme and reason for you, as 
the sexton said when he wrote three lines 
for the poor man's tombstone: 

" Here I lie, 
Killed by a sky- 
Rocket in my eye." 

When tradesmen put their earnings into 
companies and expect to see it again ; when 
they lend money at outrageous interest and 
think to make their fortunes by it, they must 
be ignorant, very ignorant. As well hang a 



VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 229 

wooden kettle over the fire to boil the 
water for tea, or sow beans in a river and 
look for a fine crop. 

When men believe in lawyers and money- 
lenders (whether Jews or Gentiles), and bor- 
row money, and speculate, and think them- 
selves lucky fellows, they are shamefully 
ignorant. The very gander on the com- 
mon would not make such a stupid of him- 
self, for he knows when anyone tries to 
pluck him, and won't lose his feathers and 
pride himself in the operation. 

The man who spends his money with 
the publican, and thinks that the landlord's 
bows and " How do ye do, my good fellow ? " 
mean true respect, is a perfect natural ; for 
with them it is — 



If you have money, take a seat ; 
If you have none, take to your f 



feet. 

The fox admires the cheese ; if it were not 
for that he would not care a rap for the 
raven. The bait is not put in to the trap to 
feed the mouse, but to catch him. We 
don't light a fire for the herring's comfort, 
but to roast him for our own eating. Men 
do not keep pot-houses for the laborer's 



230 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

good ; if they do, they certainly miss their 
aim. Why, then, should people drink " for 
the good of the house " ? If I spend 
money for the good of any house let it be 
my own and not the landlord's. It's a bad 
well into which you must put water; and 
the beerhouse is a bad friend, because it 
takes your all, and leaves you nothing but 
heeltaps and headaches. He who calls 
those his friends who let him sit and drink 
by the hour together, is ignorant, very ig- 
norant. Why, Red Lions, and Tigers, and 
Eagles, and Vultures, are all creatures of 
prey, and none but fools put themselves 
within the power of their jaws and talons. 

He who believes that either Whigs or 
Tories will let us off with light taxes must 
have been born on the day after the last of 
March; and he who imagines that parish 
boards and vestries will ever be free from 
jobbery must have been educated in an 
idiot asylum. He who believes in promises 
made at elections has long ears, and may 
try to eat thistles. Mr. Plausible has been 
around asking all the workingmen for their 
votes, and he will do all sorts of good 
things for them. Will he ? Yes, the day 



VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 231 

after to-morrow — a little later than never. 
Poor men who expect the " friends of the 
workingman " to do anything for them, 
must be ignorant, very ignorant. When 
they get their seats, of course they cannot 
stand up for their principles except when it 
is to their own interest to do so. 

To lend umbrellas and look to have them 
sent home, to do a man a good turn and 
expect another from him when you want 
it, to dream of stopping some women's 
tongues, to try to please everybody, to hope 
to hear gossips speak well of you, or to 
reckon upon getting the truth of a story 
from common report, are all evidences of 
great ignorance. Those who know the 
world best trust it least : those who trust it 
at all are not wise ; as well trust a horse's 
heel or a dog's tooth ! Trusting to others 
ruins many. He who leaves his business to 
bailiffs and servants, and believes it will be 
well done, must be ignorant, very ignorant. 
The mouse knows when the cat is out of 
the house, and servants know when the 
master is away. No sooner is the eye of 
the master gone than the hand of the work- 
man slackens ; at least, it is so nine times 



232 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

out of ten. " I'll go myself," and " I'll see 
to it," are two good servants on a farm. 
Those who lie in bed, and bolster themselves 
up with the notion that their trade will carry- 
on itself, are ignorant, very ignorant. 

Such as drink and live riotously, and won- 
der why their faces are so blotchy and their 
pockets so bare, would leave off wondering 
if they had two grains of wisdom. Those 
who go to the public-house for happiness 
climb a tree to find fish. We might put all 
their wit in an eggshell, or they would 
never be such dupes as to hunt after com- 
fort where it is no more to be found than a 
cow in a crow's nest ; but, alas ! good-for- 
nothings are common as mice in a wheat- 
rick. I only wish we could pack them off 
to Lubberland, where they have half-a- 
croWn a day for sleeping. If some one 
could let loose fellows see the sure result of 
ill-living, perhaps they might reform ; and 
yet I don't know, for they do see it, and yet 
go on all the same ; like a moth that burns 
its wings in the flame and yet dashes into 
the candle again. Certainly for loitering 
lushingtons to expect to thrive by keeping 
their hands in their pockets, or their noses 



VER Y IGNORANT PEOPLE. 233 

in pewter pots, proves them to be ignorant, 
very ignorant. 

When I see a young lady with a flower 
garden on her roof, and a draper's shop on 
her body, tossing her head about as if she 
thought everybody was charmed with her, 
I am sure she must be ignorant, very ig- 
norant. Sensible men don't marry a ward- 
robe or a bonnet-box ; they want a woman 
of sense, and women of that kind always 
dress sensibly, and not gaudily. 

To my mind, those who sneer at religion, 
and set themselves up to be too knowing to 
believe in the Bible, are shallow fellows. 
They generally use big w T ords, and bluster 
a great deal, but if they fancy they can 
overturn the faith of thinking people, who 
have tried and proved the power of the 
grace of God, they must be ignorant, very 
ignorant. He who looks at the sunrise and 
the sunset, and does not see the footprints 
of God, must be inwardly blinder than a 
mole, and only fit to live underground. 
God seems to talk to me in every primrose 
and daisy, to smile upon me from every star, 
to whisper to me in every breath of morn- 
ing air, and to call aloud to me in every 



234 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. 

storm. It is strange that so many educated 
gentlemen see God nowhere, while John the 
ploughman feels him everywhere. John 
has no wish to change places, for the sense 
of God's presence is his comfort and joy. 
They say that man is the god of the dog : 
those men must be worse than dogs who 
will not listen to the voice of God, for a 
dog obeys its master's whistle. They call 
themselves " philosophers," don't they? 
Their proper name is fools, for the fool hath 
said in his heart, " There is no God." The 
sheep know when rain is coming, the swal- 
lows foresee the winter, and even the pigs, 
they say, can see the wind; how much 
worse than a brute must he be who lives 
where God is everywhere present, and yet 
sees him not ! Thus it is very clear that a 
man may be a great hand at learning and 
yet be ignorant, very ignorant. 



FINIS. 



ttbe aitemus TLibxaty. 

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H 12* 81 




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